Another Point of View
by Sigma
Summary: What if Molly Dawes had one person who believed in her, early on? Would that have made a difference? A somewhat AU look at these characters, with all of our favourites and eventually Captain James/Molly, but just in slightly different circumstances. Please review!
1. Chapter 1

_**Chapter One**_

 _Upton Park Community Library – September 1993_

Cecilia Jones, Head Librarian at Upton Park Community Library, would never know exactly what it was that prompted her to investigate the children's corner of the library that day, long after it was normally empty of the after school attendees that usually filled it. Maybe she had been subconsciously keeping track of the comings and goings and noted that one small figure less had left than had entered. But afterwards she would realise that that random inclination to check had unintentionally been a turning point in her life.

The space initially seemed empty but just as she turned to go she heard a tiny sniffling sound, like someone trying to cry as quietly as possible. Alerted, she looked again, and saw the edge of a small foot encased in rather decrepit trainers sticking out from a corner, partially hidden behind one of the colourful half sized shelves.

Moving quietly so as not to startle her little hideaway Cecilia made her way to the shelf in question and crouched down so she wouldn't seem so intimidating.

A grubby, tear stained little face, with a thick mane of dark hair spilling haphazardly out of two bunches and huge red edged green eyes peered out at her suspiciously from the dimness. She, because it was clearly a little girl, would probably be adorable when she was a bit cleaner, but just now, with the wrinkled remains of her school uniform covered in fluff and dust and her face covered in smudges and tears, she reminded Cecilia of an illustration from a Victorian novel on street urchins. For a second they just stared at each other and then Cecilia essayed a smile.

"Hello. My name's Cecilia. What's yours?"

The stowaway seemed to think about that for a second, biting her lip as she considered, and then a very small, heavily cockney accented voice whispered. "Molly. M'names Molly. Molly Dawes, Miss."

Cecilia found her smile widening without her even meaning it. There was something about a proper Cockney accent out of such an imp that was unexpectedly appealing.

"Well, Miss Molly. Are you okay? Because it's getting a bit late, and I was wondering where your Mummy or Daddy is- or maybe you came here with a big brother or sister?"

The little figure shook her head, her bunches flying. "No. My Mummy's not here. She's at home with Bella and the babies. And my Nan's working. And Daddy will be down the pub."

Cecilia bit down a burst of concern at this blithe recital of parental absence. She saw too many children in similar circumstances every day to be surprised. "Right then. So you came by yourself?"

The little girl nodded.

"From home?" She nodded again. "And where's home?"

Cecilia listened as Molly blithely recited her address. It wasn't too far away, just a few streets, but even so a girl this young shouldn't be out on her own this late.

"And you knew how to get here because…?"

Molly sniffed again. "Ms Brown took us here from school."

"Ah." That was why the uniform seemed so familiar. There had been a class of Primary 3s in yesterday from…she frowned as she tried to remember, ah, that was it – Upton Cross Primary School.

"I remember now. So you're in Primary 3 then?" At the little girl's nod she continued. "That would make you – 7?"

Finally that startled out a small smile. "It was my birthday in June!" She sounded like this might be a happy memory and Cecilia gently prompted her to go on.

"Did you do something nice?"

"We had cake! And I got a new teddybear! Well, it was new for me. Mummy found it at the Helped the Aged shop."

Cecilia swallowed a pang at the child's innocent delight in being gifted with a much used bear that had probably only cost her mother 50p. Still, in some households even 50p was a lot.

"Well, that sounds lovely. Why don't you come out and sit with me, while I have some tea and we can get you some milk and a biscuit and you can tell me all about it?"

Molly hesitated for a second and then took the hand Cecilia reached out to her, wrapping her tiny fingers around it for balance as she scrambled to stand up. To Cecilia's hidden amusement when she stood up she seemed even more like a little fairy or an elf than she had tucked in her corner – a tiny little scrap of a waif of a child, all big green eyes and dark hair. She also seemed to realise the state of her polo shirt and skirt uniform and hastily tried to put it to rights while Cecilia waited patiently. Finally finished, she took the hand waiting for her again and Cecilia led her over to the staff break room, where she made herself a cup of tea and found some milk for Molly and handed over the eagerly anticipated chocolate hob nob, which Molly nibbled at with the wide eyed glee of a child who didn't get the treat of a chocolate biscuit of that quality very often.

After a minute or two of mutual biscuit enjoyment, Cecilia put down her mug of tea, determined to find out what had caused this miniature sprite to hide away in the furthest corner of her library on a school day. Used to dealing with small children, she knew that directly confronting Molly with the question would only intimidate her so she decided to approach the subject in a roundabout fashion.

"So, Miss Molly, do you like the library?"

At the child's eager nod she smiled. "That's lovely. It's always nice when people like the library, because I like people to enjoy coming in. And was yesterday's school trip your first visit?"

"Yes."

"So you wanted to come back?" Molly nodded again, but looked a little hesitant.

"What do you like about it?"

The little girl nibbled on her biscuit as she considered for a few more seconds before she answered.

"It's quiet." She pronounced. "Nobody shouts at me. And nobody comes back from the pub and smells bad. Or throws things."

Cecilia's heart clenched at that simple pronouncement. "That's nice. Is home a bit noisy then?" Molly gave her a suspicious look, probably already well drilled on the mantra of not telling strangers about her home life, less the "social" get involved. The little shoulders shrugged.

"It's alright."

Cecilia nodded. "And what about school?"

Molly hunched into herself a little and kicked the chair leg for a second before she answered. "I'm too stupid for school."

Cecilia felt a totally unexpected surge of rage at that pronouncement, shorn of self-pity and matter of fact from a 7 year pronouncing damning judgment on herself.

"Why do you say that?"

Molly tugged a clump of hair from her bunch and played with it for a second before she answered.

"My Daddy says so."

Cecilia's heart lurched but she kept anything but gentle encouragement out of her voice. "And your Mummy?"

The little girl shrugged again, "She's too busy with the babies."

"Right. What about…your Nan?"

Molly lit up a little. "She says that I shouldn't pay any attention to what Daddy says because _he's_ stupid." Then she wilted again. "But I don't get to see her very often as she works and Daddy doesn't like her."

"I see. And the teachers at school?"

Molly bit her lip. "I like school. But I don't read too good."

"Very well."

Green eyed peered up at her suspiciously. "What?"

Cecilia smiled reassuringly. "Very well. You say 'I don't read very well'." She handed Molly another hobnob. "But I'm sure that's not true. Maybe you just don't get enough practice. Does your Mummy or Daddy read to you?"

She wasn't surprised by the emphatic shake of the tousled little head. "No – Daddy goes down the pub and Mummy is too busy with the babies."

"Ah, you see – that's why. Practice makes everything better and easier." Molly seemed amazed by this pronouncement, her little face serious as she nibbled her 2nd HobNob and considered it.

"Really?"

Cecilia nodded very firmly. "Yes. You have to always practice things; otherwise you will never get better."

Molly frowned. "So if I read more books – I would get better at reading books?"

"That's right."

"Oh." Cecilia was amazed that Molly's teachers had never explained this simple fact to their charges, but in a class as big as Molly's (from what she recalled) maybe the teacher simply didn't have time.

The little girl seemed delighted by the concept that she could get better at reading books by reading more books but then her face fell.

"What's the matter?"

Molly scuffed her trainer along the ground beneath her chair and sagged. "I don't have any books."

"You don't have any books in the house?"

The small figure shook her head. "No."

"Well," Cecilia waved a hand to encompass the library. "You have all the books here. Remember your talk yesterday with Ms Brown, who is my friend and works here as well? You can get a pass and then you can read any book you want here, _and_ you can take them home, too."

There, again, that brief illumination in the small face and then the despondency. "I can't. Daddy doesn't like books. And the babies would break them. They break _everything_."

"Ah well." For the next few decades Cecilia would never know what prompted her to make the offer, but it was one she never regretted to her dying day.

"Well, you could come here, every day after school and read the books. And I could help you find easy ones so that your reading would improve."

Wide green eyes in a grubby face fixed on Cecilia with an expression of astonishment that anyone would do something like that for her.

" _Really_?"

Cecilia smiled and nodded. "That's my job – helping people find books. But we'd have to get your Mummy or Daddy's permission. And maybe get a grown up to walk you here every day after school."

"Oh." There, the despondency again. "I don't think anyone would."

Cecilia stood up. "We'll work it out. Now, the library's closing soon, so why don't you sit here and finish your biscuit, and here", she passed Molly that famous children's book, _The Gruffalo_ , "look at this and then in a minute I'll take you home. Okay?"

She waited for the hesitant nod and smiled and was rewarded by the most gorgeous beaming smile back, one that lit up the little girl's face until you could see exactly how pretty she was. And it was the memory of that smile that she kept in her mind, all the way through walking Molly home and the subsequent brief interview with her mother, a harassed bottle blond, with a prematurely aged face who couldn't be older than 25 but who already had Molly, and Bella and two other kids under five to contend with. Then the brief discussion the next day with Molly's teacher, when it was agreed, once Cecilia had produced the necessary signed permission slip from Mrs Dawes, that Sharon, the Classroom Assistant would drop Molly off at the library every day after school and then she would stay until Cecilia's shift finished at 18.00, when Cecilia would drop her off back home.

The object of all of this attention sat silent, when the grownups decided the logistics, clearly still amazed that anyone would take the time to help her, but nodding happily every time someone asked her if she was okay with spending every day after school with Miss Cecilia at the library. And with the help of Molly's teacher, who had been aware that the little girl was struggling but had never been able to find time to prioritise her in the face of a noisy class of 33 7 year olds, Cecilia created a reading program that would hopefully get young Miss Dawes back on track and in time, ahead, of her peers. Because one thing Cecilia knew, when she looked at that little face, was that Molly Dawes was not going to grow up thinking she was stupid – not on Cecilia Jones' watch at any rate.


	2. Chapter 2

_So - hmm - this one rather angsty - sorry! Please let me know what you think! And eagle eyed readers will notice that the date in the first chapter has now be changed to fit in with a slightly different time scale than in the "real" OG. And thank you to all the lovely reviewers who took the time to review Chapter 1!_

 ** _Chapter 2_**

 _Upton Park Community Library –September 1996_

" _Miss C_ ," came the sotto whisper, which nevertheless carried far too far in the comparative silence of the library. Despite her best intentions, Cecilia Jones bit back a smile at the familiar voice.

"Yes, Miss Dawes?"

Molly popped up from behind the counter, grinning that habitual cheeky grin that Cecilia was only too aware the little girl hardly ever wore outside of the library and her school, the two havens that the petite pre-adolescent had long since embraced with a convert's fervour.

"Miss C, this maths book is really boring! And it's a bit easy too; I did this stuff last year! Do you have anything else? Or maybe I should do something else? What do you think?"

Wide green eyes stared up at her, imploringly, filled with that rock sold trust that had developed over the last three years that Miss C would know exactly what the solution was to Molly's current dilemma, that of her maths book, being 'too easy'.

Despite herself, Cecilia bit back a smile. Sometimes it hit her exactly what a change in Molly there had been from 3 years ago. But some things still remained the same and one was that trust that little Miss Dawes had gifted her.

"Well, let's see what we have." Cecilia put on her glasses and perused Molly's independent study plan which was regularly updated by the teacher who oversaw her primary school's few academic high fliers. "Well, you've finished Cambridge Primary Maths Stage 6, so maybe it's time to move onto Stage 7?"

Molly's eyes widened. That was maths aimed at the 11-14 age group and she only turned 10 a few months ago. "Okay," she said slowly. "If you think I can."

Miss C took off her glasses and fixed Molly with a gently remonstrating look. "What do we say, Molly?"

Molly smiled a little bashfully and looked down at the ground before meeting the older woman's gaze again. "There is no such thing as can't."

Miss C's smile widened. "Exactly. If you find it too hard we can always go back a step, but we'll never know until we try, will we? Any have you finished your history and your reading for English?"

At Molly's confirmatory nod, Miss C smiled. "Do you want me to check your work for history?"

Molly nodded again, and handed over the jotter where Ms Simpson, her primary 6 teacher had set her a project to do on castles and elementary medieval hygiene. It was rather more advanced than the task the rest of the class had been set, which was simply on castles and their design, but Ms Simpson was only too aware of Molly's interest in science and had decided to push her most intellectually curious pupil a little further.

Sometimes Molly wondered, with self-possession well in advance of her years, what would have happened to her if she hadn't run away from her Dad shouting and her Mum screaming and the babies all shrieking 3 years ago to the library. She thought things might be very different for her now. Now she sometimes felt like Lyra, a character in one of her favourite books, The Golden Compass, a waif (she loved that word) brought up in a university with an absent minded professor for her uncle. Except her university was the library, her "uncle" was Miss C, who was more like a combination of older cousin, favourite aunt and best big sister ever, and outside the walls of the school and the library she had perfected the ability to blend into the background so she didn't catch her Dad's eye and trigger one of his abusive drunken rants that seemed to be occurring on an increasingly regular basis.

Miss C read her work, while Molly relaxed with another favourite book, The Phantom Tollbooth. She loved Milo and sometimes she knew exactly how he felt, but she also loved how _clever_ the book was with all the word play and the allusions. It was one of her favourites and Miss C had bought Molly her own copy for her birthday last year, which she kept, like all the books that were precious to her, on a shelf in Miss C's office. It was too dangerous to take them home, her Dad might kick off and rip them up, or the boys wreck them.

She was still engrossed when the gentle tap of a pen on paper interrupted her concentration.

"Molly."

"Yes, Miss C?" Her mentor looked unexpectedly contemplative which caused Molly to focus her full attention on the older woman.

"Have you ever thought about where you're going to school next year?"

Molly frowned. She hadn't really. She assumed that she would be going to the local comp, like everyone else from her Primary School. She shook her head. "No, Miss C, I thought I'd be going to the comp, like everyone else."

Miss C's expression was focused, as though she was thinking. "Do you really want to go to the Comp?"

Molly shrugged. "Well, not really – but that's what there is. Anyway if it's too awful, I'll always have the Library," she pointed out cheerfully.

Miss C smiled. "Of course, you'll always have the library. But I think you can do a bit better than the Comp. Here," she passed over a packet of documents and what looked like a glossy catalogue, like the program to the one panto Molly had been too, that Miss C had sneaked her into one year as a Christmas treat.

"What's this?"

Miss C gave her an amused look. "Impatient!" She chided. "Read it yourself." So she did, sitting in the librarians' carrel as she normally did, while Miss C bustled about doing her work.

 _City of London School for Girls,_ the catalogue read, in silver letters on the glossy front cover. Intrigued, Molly opened the brochure and started to read, carefully working her way through dense text and scanning the colour pictures of girls in their smart red jumpers and cardigans and their pink blouses doing science and gymnastics. It was a mile away from her rather shabby primary school with its over-crowded classrooms and distracted teachers. And Miss C thought that she, Molly Dawes, could go there? Because obviously she did, otherwise she wouldn't have given her the brochure.

Cecilia waited patiently for Molly to finish and digest the material before she turned to her.

"So," she said brightly. "What do you think?"

Molly looked both excited and dubious, a combination that Cecilia had become far too familiar with over the years. It was the result of a home environment that constantly tried to beat the young girl down combined with a school and post school environment that reinforced that she could do anything she wanted to, and tried to bolster her natural enthusiasm for a challenge. It meant that Molly often reacted to new opportunities in a slightly schizophrenic way, both interested and at the same time profoundly doubting. But Cecilia was used to that by now, and had learned how to steam roller through Molly's insecurities.

"You think that I should go to this school? I'm not sure, Miss C. It seems well posh and let's be honest, I'm a bit of a scrub from the East End."

Cecilia frowned at this habitual lack of self-confidence and when she responded her tone was slightly bracing. "You are whoever you want to be, Molly Dawes. Remember that!" She waved a finger at her mentee in reproof and the girl cracked a reluctant smile.

"But yes, I think you could do it. But the question is whether you want to?"

Molly squirmed in her seat. All the glossy pictures had looked great and the idea of going somewhere that posh with all those resources sounded amazing. But she couldn't help but notice in the brochure the giant elephant in the room – the fees.

"I might. But Miss? It's really expensive and my Mum and Dad can't afford it, so that's that."

She tried to sound as if she wasn't bothered but Miss C knew her too well for that. "Did you miss the part, Miss Molly Dawes, where they have bursaries?"

"I read it, Miss C, but I'm not really sure what a bursary is –and I haven't had time to get my dictionary to check." Molly's face was screwed up with embarrassment. After she had 'caught the bug' of loving to read from Miss C Molly had been determined that she would never let herself listen when her Dad called her 'stupid' again, even though he still did it even to this day. And part of that was knowing _words_ – what they meant, and how to say them properly, even though her accent still firmly branded her as a Cockney – something she wasn't ashamed of even slightly. She loved London, after all. But _bursary_ wasn't a word that had ever come up.

"It's a grant, a specialised one, which pays for school and university fees for people who don't have money."

Molly frowned. "Why would a posh school like that want to do that then? Don't they just want rich people at places like that?"

Miss C smiled. "Surprisingly not, Miss Molly. Sometimes they just want people who are clever, because those kinds of people help other people be better."

And, she didn't mention, somewhat cynically, also improved the reputation of the school through league tables and undergraduate destination tables which persuaded more rich parents to cough up the monies to cover the fees for their full whack paying daughters.

Molly considered that and then shrugged. She understood the reasoning, but it still seemed a bit daft to her.

"And you think that I could get one of these bursaries?" Molly frowned. "Would it cover the entire thing? And stuff like uniforms? Because there is no way Mum will pay for any of that – Dad would be even more barking than usual if he found out."

Cecilia bit back the urge to tell Molly exactly what her Dad's comments or actions were worth, which occurred pretty much automatically every time the girl mentioned her father. From what Cecilia had been able to glean, from observation and listening to Molly talk, Dave Dawes was a drunken, abusive mess of a man, and the entire family would have been infinitely better off if he just fell off the balcony at the Dawes family maisonette one night when he dragged himself back from the pub. But she had always been very careful not to strain Molly's loyalties as it wasn't fair to cause the little girl more stress by placing herself in opposition to Molly's familial bonds. So she kept her mouth shut and bit her tongue, never indicating what she really thought of him.

"Well, I'll phone them up and see what we can do. And I think we should talk to your Nan about this."

Molly brightened. "Yeah. We should," she agreed happily. "Nan will know what to do."

Cecilia had to hide a smile at that. Marge Dawes, or Nan as Molly called her, was the one member of the Dawes family that Cecilia had developed both a certain respect and a mild affection for. She was a tough woman, a classic East End Cockney bird, but she loved her oldest granddaughter fiercely, in a caustic and mostly undemonstrative fashion. And unlike Molly's mother, who was simply over-whelmed by the number of children she had to deal with (7 including her eldest) the older woman had time to spend with Molly and over the last few years had been both increasingly supportive and proud of Molly's nascent aspirations to eventually better herself. She boasted that Molly had clearly received her brains from Marge's side of the family, but she had quietly admitted to Cecilia that she had no idea where Molls had actually gained the questing intelligence that had so nearly been buried beneath parental disapproval and benign educational neglect. She was an unexpected intellectual cuckoo in the Dawes nest, but to Marge her grand-daughter's achievements were a huge source of pride and she thoroughly supported Cecilia's attempts to improve Molly's prospects.

Admittedly it had been a bit of a rocky start between the two women. Marge had been suspicious of Cecilia's motives, not sure if, as a Librarian and one employed by the local authority, Cecilia might be connected to the dreaded 'social' and be looking for dirt to take Molly into the system. In turn, Cecilia found Marge pretty rough to deal with, touchy and only too willing to take offense at the slightest hint that Cecilia was "over stepping her bounds". But the catalyst for their relationship turned out to be their mutual contempt for Dave Dawes, who Marge had epically fallen out with a few years before and who she considered to be an absolute waste of space. Silent agreement between the two women on this point had generated an initially grudging respect for each other's point of view, which had led an unexpectedly strong bond, with Molly as the glue that held them together.

These days Marge had sufficient respect for Cecilia that she had asked the other woman to help her write a will, in which she left the little she had to Molly. And further, she had named Cecilia the executor.

"Because, one – I don't trust lawyers, and what the hell does any member of the Dawes family know about being an 'executor'? And also, at least this way you'll make sure that bloody Dave doesn't get his hands on my stuff once I'm gone."

And as far as Marge was concerned that cemented the relationship, to the extent that she would occasionally drop in to the library for 'a cup of tea and a chin wag' albeit the two women's conversation mostly centred on Molly, her prospects and her latest successes.

So when Molly asked her to stop by the library the next day for a chat with Cecilia Marge was keenly interested (after some persuasion) in the brochure the younger woman produced and the possible upsides of Cecilia's proposal but as always, her interest was leavened with a fierce practicality.

"So what do you think?"

Marge chewed her lip as she considered. "Well, you say that this school would be better for our Molls than the comp?"

"I believe it would be, yes. She'll get far more individual attention, and she'll be actively encouraged to succeed."

"Which you don't think she'll get otherwise?"

Cecilia shrugged, taking a sip of her tea before she replied. "She won't do _badly_ at the comprehensive. Especially if we are there to support her and provide the extra attention that she might need. But she won't get the same level of one to one focus, and more to the point I'm afraid that once she becomes a teenager peer pressure might start to kick in – you know, the whole, 'it's not cool to be clever', thing, which might make her life difficult. While at City she would be surrounded by other girls who _want_ to be clever, to whom being clever is a _good_ thing, with teachers who are determined to stretch their pupils' abilities. Which I think can only be to Molly's advantage."

She sat back and waited while Marge turned that over in her head. "But let's be realistic, Cels. Our Molls is an East End kid. A bright one, yeah. But she's a little cockney through and through. She's not posh, not at all. Are you sure that a posh school like that would be interested in her? Because Molls' life is tough enough without getting her heart set on something like this and then having it broken because she's not good enough for them."

It was a valid question and Cecilia gave it the consideration it was due. "I understand your concerns, Marge, so I called up the contact for the scholarship program today and had a chat with her and she assured me that all the school genuinely cares about when they are looking at a scholarship application is how well the prospective pupil does in her entrance exam and if she impresses at interview. And that they've had children from a similar background to Molly before and that they've done very well. So they won't be put off by a Cockney accent."

Marge hummed and hawed for a moment. "Fine then. But what's the cost?"

Cecilia sighed. It was a very understandable question. "Too much. Approximately £3,000 per term so about £9,000 a year."

" _Jesus_. I am assuming that you have a plan?"

Cecilia leaned forward and explained about the bursary system, before she leaned back to drink her coffee. "But the only problem with that is that Molly would have to get a 100% bursary for it to be viable, and those are quite hard to get."

"Our Molls can do it," Marge announced, rock solid in her certainty. Cecilia bit back a smile.

"Well, I hope so. Personally, I would suggest that she tries anyway and we'll put some fall back plans in place to get her into an okay secondary here in Newham if she doesn't get in. Even the comprehensive isn't horrendous as long as we continue to help her with doing more advanced work."

"Hhhmm." Marge sipped her tea. "As you say. But if she could get into this posh school that would probably be best, although we'll have to make sure that Dave doesn't find out about this as he'd go spare on her for having 'thoughts above her station'. Marge's face showed what she thought of Dave Dawes' opinion on that, or any other matter and Cecilia merely raised an eyebrow in agreement.

"This bursary, does it cover things like uniform and such?"

"I think so, and they have extra funds available for that kind of thing."

"Good." Marge snorted. "She'd need everything. Because Dave, that waste of space would be totally against her going to a posh school like that. He already gives our Molls shit for 'trying to be more than she's meant to be.' Twat."

For a moment the two women's eyes met in perfect accord.

"Indeed."

Marge looked down at the brochure again. "So say our Molls does do this, what's our next move?"

"Well, I would fill in the application form on her behalf. Although we will have to get a parental signature." She hesitated, aware that might be difficult.

Marge waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry. I'll get Belinda to sign. That daughter of mine might be too weak to get rid of that tosser that she married, and too scared of what he might do to stand up to him, but she'll do this for our Molly if I tell her too." She met Cecilia's eyes again, her own keenly appraising. "I notice it says that the fee for that application is £100."

Her tone was a question and Cecilia shrugged. "I'll pay that." Seeing Marge's hackles start to rise, she fixed the older woman with an authoritative look. "Marge, we both love Molly and we want her to succeed. So let me do this for her, okay?"

Marge snorted and then settled down again. "Right. Fine. I don't like it, but I'm not one to let pride stop our Molly from getting her chance. And what about those exams? She's never done anything like these before, and that's going to make it hard for her."

"Don't worry," Cecilia smiled a little. "I've got that covered." She lifted a pile of thin books from the side table. "Scholarship tests. Old ones for City and ones for all of the other big private schools in London. If we can get Molly's application accepted she and I are going to have some _very_ intensive tutoring sessions."

Marge raised her eyebrows, reluctantly impressed by the level of organisation Cecilia was demonstrating. "How did you get those?"

Cecilia just smiled. "Occasionally being a librarian has its advantages." Marge smirked back at her.

"You're a dark one, Cecilia Jones."

Cecilia smiled back. "I try."

Marge pursued her lips as she considered. "Right. Let's give it a go then. But if I'm going to be making Belinda sign that permission slip I might as well do something else that I've intended to get sorted for a while. Does that lawyer mate of yours still owe you a favour?"

"Simon? Well, I'm sure he would help if there is something we really need and it's not too expensive. He could put it down for his corporate social responsibility hours. Why? What are you thinking?"

Marge leaned forward, "Well, it's like this….."

Molly was almost skipping with excitement as she walked to the desk in the assembly hall she had been assigned by the lady at the registration desk for the scholarship exams. Ever since the day 3 months ago when Ms C had submitted the application form for City she had to been working towards today, when she sat the entrance exams. It had been hard work, getting her head around the different types of questions, understanding exactly what she should show in her answers and what wasn't important, but it had also unexpectedly been sort of fun, with Ms C and her working together with a very definite end goal in sight.

Now she was here and as Ms C had said all she had to do was to try her very best. And then even if she didn't get in she could be proud of herself. She glanced up at the doorway to the entrance hall where she knew her Nan was waiting. Her Nan had given her a hard hug and a nod and a brusque, "right, away you go," pretending that she wasn't bothered on Molly's behalf, but she knew that her Nan would be crossing her fingers in her brain until Molly finished.

As she looked around she realised that there were probably over a hundred girls sitting the exams, all her own age. It was a classic slice of London life, every ethnicity under the sun, although Molly giggled quietly as she realised that as a Cockney she probably almost counted as an ethnicity herself! She turned her attention to the pad of paper and the rack of various pencils and pens that she had retrieved from her school bag earlier and which were now lined up in neat serried ranks at the top of her desk. She'd thought that she'd be terribly nervous, but she actually wasn't. Instead she felt sort of bubbly excited and really, really determined to show what she could do. Personally, she didn't think that she was going to be offered a place, because there were a lot of much brighter girls than her out there who also had the kind of parents that helped them. But Nan and Miss Cecilia really wanted her to try and she thought that it would be an interesting experience, and if she did get offered a place that would be like winning a medal, like at the Olympics, except a medal for learning things instead, which would be awesome.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by the soft sound of the bell as the invigilator stood at the front of the hall and explained the conditions of the tests. She waited patiently for the question booklet to be dropped on her desk, and didn't give in to the urge to open it early, although she saw one or two girls being frowned at by the assistant invigilators for doing so. She studied the closed booklet closely while she waited. It seemed to be very similar to the booklets that she had already gone over and over with Miss C, so fingers crossed the content wouldn't be too different either.

Then the bell rang again and she flicked open the cover and immediately recognised the format of one of the questions. It was just like she and Miss C had practised and biting her lip in excitement she dived right in.

Marge sighed and looked at her watch for what seemed like the hundredth time. When Ceciles had mentioned this mad scheme to her she hadn't been sure. Her Moll's life was hard enough without making her feel like a failure if she couldn't get into a posh school like this. But Molly had been so keen and she had promised her Nan that she understood that she probably wouldn't get a place, but she wanted to try anyway just so she knew she had. And Cecilia had talked her around pointing out that the experience of trying would be good for Molly, it would help her get used to the idea of taking exams and it would also raise Molly's own expectations of what she could do, as even if she didn't get offered a place Molly would know that she was as entitled to try for opportunities like the scholarship as any other bright girl who had more support at home. Well, that was what the other woman had meant, even though she was too polite to put it as bluntly as that.

That and Molls' own enthusiasm had been enough to convince Marge and she had watched her grand-daughter and Cecilia undertake all of their preparation with a slightly bewildered pleasure, so glad that someone like the younger woman had seen just how special her Molls was in time to do something to help her. She had been wary of the other woman to start with, not sure at all about her motives or why a well spoken woman who was clearly middle class and well educated would out of her way to help a little Cockney urchin like her granddaughter but over time she had realised that there was genuine affection there on both sides, however unlikely that might be and that maybe Cecilia had reached out because she was a bit lonely, a little bit isolated in her job. But personally Marge thought it was likely that her Molls was pretty lonely too, so it suited them both. But whatever the reasons Nan was deeply glad that Cecilia had take an interest in Molly because that interest had already opened her granddaughter's life to possibilities that Nan could never have hoped for and also lit a burning desire in Marge to see her Molls make something of herself, to get out of Upton Park, to have a life where Molls wouldn't drop of school at 16 as Marge already foresaw the rest of Belinda's kids doing. Maybe Molls could go to university, really make it big, get one of those fancy graduate jobs in the City and never have to worry about bailiffs coming to the door or a man drinking away her housekeeping. And if Molls could get offered a chance to go to somewhere like this school that would make it so much easier for her to break out of the East End and for that reason alone Marge was happy to sit and wait for her girl to take these exams and silently pray, as she'd never prayed for herself, that her Molls would do well.

Finally after what seemed like an age the bell rang, giving Marge horrible memories of her own short school days and from the exam hall a flood of young girls appeared, each splitting off to their own directions immediately, like lambs reunited with mother ewes amongst a flood of high pitched chatter. She craned her neck to see Molly and eventually saw her at the back of the pack, juggling her backpack but looking pretty happy and Marge smiled in relief. Even if nothing came of this it didn't look as though Molls had suffered too much from the experience.

Her smile widened as her granddaughter bounced over to her. "Right then, our Molls. 'ow was it?"

Molly giggled, eyes bright. "It was okay Nan, honest! It was hard yeah, but all of the questions were stuff that Miss C and I had looked at, so that was okay," she puffed up, "so I could answer them all!"

Marge grinned at her. "Well then, that's all right then, isn't it? So now we just have to wait and see?" Molly nodded.

"Yeah. They'll tell us in about two weeks. And then if I do well enough they'll ask me to come in for an interview." She looked up at her Nan with anxious green eyes. "Will you come with me if they do, Nan?"

Marge reached out to pull her into a brief hug. "'Course. Unless you want Cel to do it?"

Molly shook her head. "No, I love Miss C, but you're _my Nan,_ Nan. I want you to come. If you want to," she added anxiously.

Marge felt a fierce surge of love for this tough feisty granddaughter of hers, and swore again to herself that she would do everything she could to help Molly be the first of the Dawes clan for generations to break out of the poverty and lack of aspiration that had so pulled them all down. Things were going to be different for her Molls or she Marge would know the reasons why.

"Course I'll come. Fingers crossed, ay our Molls?"

Molly nodded emphatically. "Yeah, Nan. Everything crossed!" She followed alongside her Nan as they made their leisurely way out of the school buildings, winding their way through the convoluted paths of the Barbican.

"We going straight home, Nan?"

Marge smiled down at her granddaughter. "No love. I thought we could go and celebrate a little, grab me a coffee and you a cake before we go back. That sound good?"

Molly almost squeaked in excitement – something like what her Nan was describing was almost unheard of in the Dawes household where her Dad spent any spare money down at the pub and her Mum had never once taken the whole pack of the kids any where fancier than Mickey D's. "That would be great, Nan! But can you afford it?"

Nan smirked at the frown creasing that little face. "Course I can. I won big on the Bingo this week and I've got twenty quid I've been keeping just for this."

At that reassurance Molly lit up, again bouncing about with excitement. "Where are we gonna go, Nan?"

"Well, we can pick up the Tube again from Liverpool Street, so I thought we'd go to Spitalfields, there are some nice cake shops and cafes there."

"Awesome!" The two of them had been making their way through the Barbican all this time and they had eventually wandered down to street level just at the roundabout by the Museum of London, heading for the zebra crossing which they stepped onto, still chatting.

For the rest of her life Molly would never know exactly what happened. All she remembered was a screech of tyres, her Nan screaming her name and the shove of the older woman's hands against her body with what seemed almost superhuman strength, sending her granddaughter flying through the air to land a few feet away. Then there was a horrible quiet fleshy thudding noise that seemed oddly loud even amongst the chaos of the noise of the crash as a car mounted the pavement and smashed to a stop against the wall and then the sirens coming from the police car screeching to a halt that had just seemed to appear out of nowhere.

Years later she would see from the police accident report that a stolen car driven by two men who had just committed a smash and grab of a jeweller's shop when high on drugs had driven at 70 mph directly through the zebra crossing while being pursued by the police and had hit one adult pedestrian and caused minor injuries to a child accompanying that pedestrian. But at the time all she knew was that one minute she been so very happy, with her Nan, everything for once all right in her world – and then suddenly she wasn't.

Everything had gone away for a moment and then it came flooding back, so much noise and confusion. Somewhere someone was shouting and there was a horrible hot smell in the air of burning petrol and thick smoke, and someone was screaming and swearing, high and shrieking like a rabbit she'd once seen caught by a greyhound on the Wansted flats when her Dad had dragged the family up there to show off to his mates. Her head hurt, and her side, even worse than the time her Dad had got really drunk and had walloped her so that she'd fallen down the concrete stairs outside the maisonette. And there was something trickling down her face into her eye. She reached up to touch it and her head gave this big throb so that she couldn't help the tears that started in her eyes, but her hand when she looked at it was red with blood. She didn't know what was happening but she knew that she'd been here with her Nan – she had to find her Nan, she would know what to do.

Unnoticed by the police who were frantically trying to get close to the burning car totalled into the side of the building to pull out the driver and the passenger who were in danger of burning to death she pulled herself up onto scraped knees whimpering at the pain and looked about for her Nan. She couldn't see her amongst the confusion and then she saw the back of a familiar tan coat, the one Nan kept for best, that she'd worn today just for Molly, but it was crumpled on the ground, just like a bundle of cloth, like there was no person in there at all. But it was the only familiar thing she could see so she stumbled to her feet, her legs not wanting to carry her like her Dad after he'd came back from the pub and wove her unsteady way over to that rumpled mess of cloth and dropped down beside it.

There was something in it after all.

It was a moment that haunted her for years after but somehow she found the courage to reach out and gently touch the shoulder of that bundle of cloth, feeling the solid flesh of a body within the coat.

"Nan?" Her voice didn't even sound like hers, she thought absently, all thick and hoarse with pain and snot. For a second there was no response and then the faintest of groans from the body beneath her fingers and it shifted just a little, enough to flop on to its back so that it was facing Molly.

Molly couldn't help it; she had to put her hands over her mouth so she wasn't sick. It wasn't the mud and the dirt but the huge cut across her Nan's cheek bleeding all of the way down her face and the glazed look in her green eyes, so like Molly's own. And her Nan was so pale like a painting of herself, all of the humour and craftiness stripped from her features so she looked almost lumpy, like half baked dough.

Marge was barely conscious but aware enough to see the anxious expression of her granddaughter hovering over her, blood trickling down one young cheek, her face pale as chalk except where the blood marked it. She couldn't feel all of herself and she knew that wasn't probably a good sign and she was so tired, so very, very tired. And a little bit cold, but it was a kind of numbing cold slipping up from her fingers and where she thought her feet probably were but she wasn't really sure. She tried to lift her fingers to touch Molls' face, but nothing seemed to be working properly. But her little girl looked so scared and she couldn't have that, not when she'd been so champion.

"Molls." It was hardly a whisper, so different from her Nan's usual brisk bolshiness, but Molly sobbed to hear it, and reached over to grab the hand that was twitching on the ground trying to lift up to her face.

"Nan! You're hurt, I've got to get help!" She turned in place and looked around wildly at the onlookers who were starting to gather. She didn't know what to do, but then she saw the police. They would help, it was what they were meant to do, even if her Dad had always said that the pigs never had any time for people like them.

"Help! Please! Help!" She shouted as loud as she could with her voice all torn up and waved frantically with her free hand. The police didn't immediately notice but one of the onlookers did and ran over to one of the policemen and interrupted him to gesticulate in Molly and her Nan's direction. But Molly hardly noticed, all her attention back on her Nan, who was coughing fitfully, as though she could hardly expend the energy and to Molly's horror the spittle trickling out of her mouth was speckled bright red with blood. Her hands fluttered helplessly over the older woman's body, not able to see anything she could fix, not able to help, tears falling down her face in a torrent as she tried to find something to do.

"Nan, I can't...I don't know what to do. I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I don't know how to help, 'ow to fix you. Does it hurt, I don't want it to hurt, I'm sorry, it's my fault, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have got hurt. Nan, I'm so sorry."

From somewhere her Nan seemed to find a burst of energy at her litany of self hatred. "No," she whispered before she coughed again. "Don't you ever think that, my girl...This could have happened anywhere, any time. This is **not** your fault. You understand?" She fixed her granddaughter with her stare as she rasped out her instructions, determined that even if it took everything she had left she'd get her point across. "You're my best girl, my pride, you've made me so proud these last few years and I need you to promise," her voice was almost inaudible and she paused to cough again, the spit almost all blood as Molly tried to wipe it away from her Nan's mouth with her already dirty sleeve. "I need you to promise, my Moll," she wheezed, "that you'll do everything you can to get out. Get out of Upton Park, get away from that waste of space father of yours. I want you to finish school," she coughed harder and heaved for air, it was getting increasingly hard to breathe and she was so very, very tired. Just one last effort. In the distance she could hear Molly screaming for help and the sound of running footsteps but they seemed so far away. "Molls."

"Yes, Nan," she was crying again, don't think she'd ever stopped, her lovely little girl, but she leaned down when Marge tugged just a little on the hand that Molly was clutching between her own.

"You finish school, you hear me, Molls?" She coughed again, all blood now. "Go to university, get a good job, be something in the world, you promise me? And listen to Cecilia, she'll look out for you."

She could hear Molly sobbing. "I promise, Nan. I promise."

Somewhere she found the strength to curl her fingers around the hands Molly had so tightly wound around hers, all of her energy exhausted. "Good girl. I love you my Molls. I love you so, so much." She was so tired, so very tired and she had to close her eyes now, but not before she gave her girl a smile.

"Nan, no please, please stay awake." Her Nan's eyes had drifted shut as she smiled at her and Molly shook her shoulder frantically, feeling like time had slowed down, although some part of her realised that only maybe a minute had passed since she had waved for help. Already there was the thud of running footsteps behind her signifying help was coming but that cold quiet part of her, the part that was observing everything that was happening as though it was a TV show rather than real life knew that it was already too late, that some part of her Nan, the part that made her who she was had already gone from her face and the bit that was left wasn't really her Nan at all. And that still, quiet part of her kept knowing that even as she shook her Nan and shouted at her, as the police and paramedics gently pushed her aside and took over, as the paramedics laboured over her Nan's body, trying desperately to pull her back from where ever she'd gone and the police woman tried unsuccessfully to shield her from seeing what was going on, eventually giving up and sitting with her arm around Molly's shoulders in a hug as she watched, dry eyed now as the paramedics tried everything they could and eventually admitted defeat.

 _Time of death – 14.34._


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Molly?"

The soft voice of Miss C broke the dazed stare that Molly had been focusing on the unopened envelope that she was holding in her hands and she looked up, blinking, her eyes as they had been for the last two and a bit weeks feeling swollen and hot, as though she might burst into tears at any moment. This was pretty accurate as she had found herself on the edge of tears the majority of the time since that horrible day.

"Hhmm?"

Miss C looked down at her, a small sympathetic smile playing around the corners of her mouth. "Would you like some tea? Or some milk? And a biscuit?"

She wasn't hungry, not really, not in her head, even though her stomach might disagree. She hadn't been hungry, not properly since that day. Somehow it seemed wrong to be hungry when Nan wouldn't ever be there to chide her to eat, ever again.

"No, Miss." She tried to summon the ghost of a smile for Miss C, but it came out a bit more tremulous than she had wanted, and Miss C's concerned look melted into sadness as librarian came around to sit down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders to pull her into the comforting warmth of the older woman's side.

"Oh, Molly." Cecilia hugged her charge tighter. "You have to eat, love. You know that your Nan wouldn't want you to waste away. Maybe just one biscuit?"

She was right, Molly knew it. If Nan was still here she would be giving her granddaughter the full glare treatment right now, standing over her to make sure she ate. She nodded glumly.

"Okay. Just one?"

Miss C nodded as well as she got up and came back a few minutes later with a steaming cup of something that smelled far too nice to be tea and a KitKat. "Here. Hot chocolate as well. I don't normally make it, but you need the calories sweetheart."

Molly put down her letter on the table and carefully took the mug from Miss C, wrapping her hands gratefully around the warmth. It smelled delicious and her stomach rumbled her approval, reminding her of the fact that she hadn't had breakfast this morning and tea yesterday had been an apple and a sandwich she had smuggled out of her free lunch at school. It had been worth it to avoid her Dad though.

He was calming down a bit now, mainly because nothing kept his attention for long but the events of two weeks ago had been significant enough to knock even him out of his self-absorption. There had been ranting about why she and "the old bitch" had been in the City in the first place, and then further ranting when it became apparent to him that Nan hadn't left Moll's Mum any money that he could spend.

After the accident the paramedics had taken Molly to the hospital to be checked out. Everyone had been very kind but all she had wanted to do was to curl in a small ball and make the world go away. Her Mum couldn't come and get her because she couldn't get a babysitter for the kids and eventually a nice policeman had taken her home, to where her Mum was waiting, her face tear stained and blotchy and for once she had pulled Molly into a grateful hug, hot tears wetting the top of her oldest daughter's head. That gratitude that Molly was unhurt and the grief at her mother's death had lasted long enough to give Belinda the courage to deflect her husband's attention from what Nan and Molly had been doing in the City that day, and Belinda had encouraged him to go to the pub, knowing that alcohol would dull his curiosity so that he was likely to forget he'd ever cared to ask. Which turned out to the case.

Nan's funeral had been far busier than expected – thankfully she'd had a small Co-operative Bank funeral insurance policy that Belinda knew about so that the expenses of a basic service at the Crematorium and a traditional East end buffet at the local pub (not Daves' pub – Belinda made sure of that) were covered. Dozens of Marge's friends had turned up with the expected over the top floral wreaths and commiserations. Even Dave had put his best foot forward on the day, he and his mother-in-law may have hated each other, but that kind of baggage wasn't aired outside the family and he managed to stay (mostly) sober for the extent of the service and the wake.

Nan had a lot of acquaintances and a solid handful of true friends, who knew exactly how much she had detested her son-in-law, despaired of her daughter and adored her eldest granddaughter and accordingly gravitated towards the small figure hovering around the edge of the crowd in the pub. Molly had been the receipt of a lot of hugs, and good wishes and some lovely comments about how much her Nan had loved her and how proud she'd been of "her Molls", which just made her want to cry even more. But despite all the well-wishing Molly had wanted nothing more than to be able to retreat to the haven of the library and Miss C's calm empathy and as soon as she could politely remove herself from the now raucous gathering in the pub (where more than one Cockney lady of a certain age was now participating in a more than slightly out of tune drunken sing along of her Nan's favourites) she had fled, turning up at Miss C's desk twenty minutes later where the librarian had taken in the state of her with eyes that were suspiciously moist herself, and had planted her in the cosy armchair in the book cluttered staff room, wrapped up in a soft fleecy throw with a glass of milk and a biscuit to hand and a pile of her favourite books to console her.

But that had been last week and by now everyone else seemed to be getting back to normal. Except that Molly couldn't. She felt like she was stuck, stuck in that moment when everything had gone so terribly wrong. She wasn't sleeping, jerking awake in the night as the scream of overstretched tyres and that horrible thud echoed through her dreams. Even though her stomach rumbled her head wasn't hungry and she'd found that she was picking at her food, the idea of eating more than a few bits making her feel sick. And whenever she had a moment to think she kept wanting to burst into tears, not that she allowed herself to do that, as showing that kind of weakness in front of her Dad was like dragging a broken leg in front of a predator, an irresistible invitation to cruel mockery at the very least or a screaming rant and perhaps a casual clout, depending on how drunk he was at the time.

The only thing that pushed the feelings back was work, study at school and then further study at the library under Miss C's concerned care. It was the only thing that gave Molly quiet in her nut and she needed that, craved it more than ever before. She arrived at the library as soon as school was over, and stayed until closing every night when Miss C would walk her home and she would immediately collapse into fitful sleep.

It was as if she was caught in time, unable to move forward and then just today everything had come into sudden focus when she'd arrived at the library and Miss C had handed her the sealed envelope with the stamp of _City of London Girls School_ on it. For a second she'd just stared at it bewildered. She'd almost forgotten that they were waiting for it, but then she turned it over, looking at the strange address headed with her name in confusion.

"Who's address is this?"

"It's mine." Miss C clarified. "My private address." Miss C smiled, just a little. "It was your Nan's idea. She thought it best that anything from the school go to me, not your house. That way your Dad wouldn't get involved."

"Oh." She had turned the letter over and over again, a small ember of something a little like excitement igniting in her heart, almost painful after the emotional wasteland of the last two weeks. Then Miss C had distracted her with the glass of milk and a KitKat. But now she had finished both, the taste of the chocolate still lingering on her tongue and she had picked up the envelope again, feeling its weight in her fingers, so light for something that could matter so much.

"Well….are you going to open it?" For almost the first time in their relationship Molly heard a trace of impatience in Miss C's voice and looked up from her contemplation of the sealed envelope in surprise. The other woman looked back down at her, a smile ticking at the corners of her mouth. "It won't bite you know, Molly."

Her mentee took a deep breath. "But what if I haven't passed?"

Miss C looked down at her and then reached out a hand to run it down the length of her plait affectionately, tugging on the end gently.

"Well then, we'll have to go onto plan B, to get you into one of the better schools here in Newham. We've got the time." She shrugged. "Even if you do end up going to the Comp it will be fine. You and I will just have to make sure that you some extra work on the side, just like we've been doing for ages." She smiled at her again. "So open that envelope before I have to open it for you!"

Despite her worry a small smile crept onto Molly's mouth at Miss C's obvious anticipation. It felt a bit strange, rusty like, because she didn't think she'd smiled since that day, not really. But her attempt was met with a beaming smile from the older woman, and reassured Molly took the slim ruler that Miss C handed her and used it to carefully slit the envelope open, making sure that she didn't tear the slim sheet of folded A4 inside.

She held her breath as she pulled it out and then bit her lip, unable to unfold it. Instead she thrust it at her mentor, eyes pleading. "Can you read it? Please?"

Miss C looked down at her for a beat and then nodded as she reached out to pluck the thin sheet of paper from Molly's unresisting fingertips and unfolded it without any further preamble, eyes skimming rapidly over the contents. Molly watched her anxiously, biting her lip again, as she waited for a minute that seemed to stretch into an age. Then her eyes went huge at the beaming smile that erupted on her mentor's face and the sudden movement as the older woman swooped down to pull Molly into a tremendous hug, laughing as she tightened her arms around her student.

"You did it!" She pulled back to cup Molly's face in her two hands before landing a resounding smack of a kiss on her small forehead. "You did it! You, Molly Dawes, are an absolute star!"

"What?" Molly queried, bewildered. "What? I did it?" She scrabbled to stand up. "I really did it?!"

Miss C laughed again and grabbed Molly's hands and dragged her round the room in an impromptu un-coordinated dance that forced an unexpected giggle out of Molly's mouth. At the sound the two of them froze, Miss C looking down at her with her smile still creasing her mouth, Molly feeling almost ashamed to be laughing so soon after that day.

"Molly," Miss C reassured her gently, "it's okay to be happy you know. Do you not think if your Nan was here she wouldn't be happy for you?"

"Oh no, Miss," Molly acknowledged softly. "She'd be really happy too, swearing that it was all her doing of course, but of course she'd be happy."

"Well then, she'd want you to be happy too. And if she's watching you now you should let that show."

Molly perked up a bit at that. "Do you think she is? Watching me, I mean."

Miss C hesitated for a moment, clearly choosing her words carefully. "I think that's the kind of question much bigger brains than you and I have spent eons trying to get to the bottom of. But what I think – and this is just _my_ opinion, is that no one is ever truly gone while someone remembers them, and if your Nan could watch over you, she would. So maybe she is? Who knows? And if it makes you feel better to think she is, then do. I know I did, when my gran died."

"You did?"

Miss C nodded gravely. "It was a very long time ago now, but sometimes," she smiled just a little. "It feels like she sees me, even now. And I like to think that, so I think that she does," she confirmed, her smile a little sad around the edges.

"But enough about that!" She continued briskly, throwing off the small bout of melancholy Molly's innocent question had sparked. "Don't you want to know how you did?"

"Oh!" She'd been so distracted that she hadn't even considered what her grades were. "Was it okay? Did I do alright?"

Miss C grinned at her. "Well, considering they want you to come in for the scholarship interview I'd say you did _very_ well. Here," she passed her the sheet of paper carefully. "Take a look."

Holding her breath Molly did so. The letter was friendly, but very formal, the most formal thing she thought she'd ever seen addressed to her in her short life, but she could understand it.

 _Dear Miss Dawes,_

 _Further to your attendance at the City of London Girls entrance exam and scholarship tests session on 10_ _th_ _January we are delighted to inform you that you have passed the required entrance standards in both the English and Mathematics papers._

 _Accordingly, we would like to invite you to attend the school on a suitable date to be arranged, to undertake an interview with Mrs Sarah Smythe, Headmistress, with regard to considering you for entrance to the school in September 2000 and also for consideration in relation to potential bursaries to be awarded by the school for assistance with our fee packages._

 _Please contact our Bursar, Mr Charles Evans to arrange an appointment._

 _Your marks for papers completed are noted below._

 _Subject Marks out of a potential 100_

 _English 98%_

 _Mathematics 99%_

 _Congratulations and we look forward to meeting you in person very soon._

 _Kind regards,_

 _(Bursar)_

She put a hand over her mouth in amazement, her eyes feeling like they'd split if they got any wider. "Oh!"

Miss C laughed again. "Oh indeed. I say it again; you are a star, Molly Dawes!" She sobered. "Now, whenever in the future you feel down, or you start to listen when idiots tell you that you're stupid I want you to think of this letter. And do you know that they grade on a curve for applicants for bursaries?"

Molly frowned at that as she shook her head. "I don't know what that means, Miss C."

Miss C smirked. "It means that they took all of the girls who sat the exams, and there were about five hundred of them this year, I checked, and then they looked at the marks they all got and adjusted the percentages across the entire group so only the very, very top of the group got the highest percentages like yours. So out of 500 hundred applicants you came in the top 3 or 4 of the entire group."

Molly's mouth hung open. That couldn't be true. But Miss C had never lied to her before, so she had to believe her. "Really?"

The librarian nodded. "Really. Now you go and be proud of that, Miss Dawes!"

For a minute Molly just gasped and then she couldn't help the beaming smile that spread across her face- Nan would have been so proud! Her eyes stung for a moment and then she dried them with a flash of temper. No more crying –she was done.

"What's next then, Miss C?"

"Next is we contact the school to make an appointment for the interview. And we tell your current school how well you did."

"Do they have to know? I don't want a fuss."

"Molly, they already know. I had to give them as a reference when we made the application." She caught the flash of worry across her student's face. "Don't worry – there is no way they won't have given you a stellar recommendation."

"Hhmm. Okay. When will we arrange for the interview?"

"Well, I'm sure your school won't mind if you take an afternoon off so I'll arrange it for during the week. Less chance of your Dad finding out."

"Yeah. That'll be good." She glanced down and them up at her mentor. "Miss C – will you come with me? Nan was going to come, but now…" her voice trailed to a stop and Miss C gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze.

"Of course. I would be honoured. I'll make sure to arrange some time off. Now," she continued more briskly. "You should start thinking about things the Headmistress may wish to talk to you about."

Molly frowned. "Like what?"

"Well, I don't know for certain, but I would expect that she would like to know why you want to go to her school, and what you could bring to the school, how you could help it keep its good reputation and how hard you would work. Or she might ask about your family, and although I know it might be uncomfortable you should be honest about that Molly. Polite, but honest. And she will probably ask you about your ambitions as well. You should think about what you might like to study if you go to university. And what career you might like to have. It doesn't have to be anything definite; I would think that she'll simply want to see the way your mind works."

Molly lifted her chin. "I already know exactly what I want to do."

"You do?" This was a surprise to Cecilia as Molly had never indicated that she was focused on one potential career before. Her student had always enjoyed science and technology but she also loved history and English and Cecilia didn't think that the little girl had any definite inclinations towards any particular career yet.

"Yes." There was a certain set to her small jaw that Cecilia recognised from long experience as Molly at her most stubborn.

"I'm going to be a doctor. I'm going to be a doctor that works in an accident & emergency department." She gave Cecilia a look, slightly worried but determined, waiting to see what the older woman thought. Miss C was the first person she had dared to voice her nascent ambition to, and she was a little worried that Miss C might say that she, Molly was aiming a bit high, but over the last few weeks since the accident she'd known that being a doctor was exactly what she was meant to do.

Miss C didn't say anything for a moment, but just looked at her with those calm grey eyes of hers and then gave her a lopsided smile full of emotion and reached forward to give her a brief hug.

"Oh Molly." She straightened. "It's a very admirable ambition. I'm not going to ask why, because I can guess but the Headmistress might ask you why, so do you want to try to tell me, so it's not so hard when she asks?"

Molly nodded choppily, feeling her eyes moisten again, but refusing to let the tears fall. "I couldn't do anything, Miss C. Nan was lying there, and she was hurt, and I was _useless_ ," she growled. "I couldn't help. She was hurting and I just sat there and all I could do was hold her hand and cry."

Miss C reached out a hand to clasp her shoulder reassuringly. "Molly I don't think anyone could have helped your Nan. Her internal injuries were too extensive. Even the paramedics when they arrived couldn't help. I couldn't have helped. So why should you? You are only ten, after all, love."

"I know." Molly tightened her jaw. "But maybe I could help the next person I see like that. And I'm not going to be ten forever, Miss C. And I never want to not know what to do like that again. I'm not going to be _helpless_ ever again." There was so much frustration and self-loathing in that hissed comment that Cecilia's heart hurt for her.

"Oh Molly, don't you dare blame yourself for what happened – do you understand? If your Nan could hear you she would be very upset, because remember what you told me she said? She said that it wasn't your fault. And you have to remember that."

The young girl gulped down the lump of emotion that had formed in her throat. "I know. And I'll try, I will. But sometimes it's hard."

Cecilia gave her another lopsided smile full of sympathy. "I know, but it will get better over time, I promise. Just now it's like a shard of glass that's just broken, all sharp edges in your hand. But time will blunt the edges so it won't hurt as much when you think about it."

"Promise?"

"I promise. Honestly."

Molly took a deep breath, "Good. But yes, that's what I want to do. I want to be an emergency doctor."

Cecilia smiled and hugged her again. "Well, Miss Dawes. That can be our next long term project." She laughed softly. "It'll be a _very_ long term one."

Molly giggled watery in response. "How long, Miss C?"

Her mentor shrugged. "Oh, about two decades, give or take a few years." At Molly's stunned look she laughed again. "Come on, Miss Dawes – you didn't think it was going to be _easy_ , did you?"

"No, but…"

Miss C held up an admonishing finger. "No "but's" allowed, Molly Dawes. Remember what I've taught you – genius is?"

"99% perspiration and 1% inspiration."

"Exactly. And that's how we'll tackle this – 1% at a time. And the first percent is that I call the school up to arrange for your interview tomorrow."

Molly was suddenly so incredibly grateful that she still had Miss C in her life, even if her Nan was gone that she atypically moved forward and wrapped her arms around Miss C's waist in a hug. There was a second of surprise from her mentor and then she wrapped her arms around Molly's shoulders in return and held her tight.

"Don't leave, please," Molly muttered almost inaudibly into Miss C's jumper. But Cecilia heard and felt her heart turn over at the desperate plea in that quiet voice. She tightened her arms around her charge.

"I won't Molly. I promise. Unless you want me to, or the choice is out of my hands – I'll always stay."

"Miss Molly Dawes is here for her interview, Headmistress."

Sarah Smythe looked up with narrow eyed interest at the polite announcement through her intercom from her long term PA, Rebecca. Now _this_ was an applicant that she'd been looking forward to meeting.

It wasn't the quite remarkable set of marks that had piqued her interest, so much as the novelty of a Caucasian native East Londoner from a working class background even applying to the school. While they frequently had applicants from the East End, 99% of them were usually from an ethnic background as unfortunately very few parents of children from the traditional Cockney white working class would ever consider putting their children forward for a place at City. Unlike the vast majority of the parents of her ethnic applicants there was very little respect for education for its own sake amongst white working class East London, and what could often only be described as a poverty of aspiration for their children, which Sarah, a Londoner herself, although one brought up in the leafy suburbs of Richmond which were about as financially, philosophically and physically as distant as you could get from East End and still be in London, thought a great pity.

So to have a child from that background do so well in the initial exams, well that made her a rare flower, and one Sarah had been very curious to meet.

"Send her in, please, Rebecca."

"Of course, Headmistress."

A moment later there was a quiet knock on the door to her office and Sarah rose in automatic politeness and forbore to raise an eyebrow as a petite figure slipped in through the now opened doorway. Molly Dawes was tiny and looked far younger than the ten years that her file said she was. Almost elfin, with huge green eyes, far too thin and dark hair neatly plaited back away from a small heart shaped face.

With the ease of long experience Sarah noted the neat school uniform, but also the slightly clumsy darns in the sweater and the way the cuffs were far too short, all those subtle signs of a house where money was too tight for anything other than the essentials. And her shoes were scuffed, with a crack around the toe, but carefully polished to a soft shine, although the attention could not disguise the shoes' age or how worn out they were.

Careful not to let anything she was thinking show on her face; Sarah smiled warmly and reached out a hand to her interviewee, who took it carefully. They shook and the Headmistress gestured to the chair in front of her desk.

"Miss Dawes, it's nice to meet you. Please, have a seat."

She watched as the little girl sat gingerly down on the chair, bolt upright, with her hands folded neatly in her lap and then sat down herself.

"Would you like a drink, Miss Dawes, water or juice?"

"Oh no, Miss, please don't trouble yourself, I'm fine."

Those huge eyes were fixed on her, more than slightly anxious but otherwise she was admirably composed, far more than a lot of applicants, who often looked terrified.

"Well then. Shall we get started?"

"Yes, Miss."

Those green eyes which seemed far too old for Dawes' delicate, still childlike features looked up at her as she waited. The girl was very pretty in a quiet way and Sarah could see the potential for adult loveliness in the pre-adolescent lines of her face. But unlike so many of the middle and upper class girls that Sarah interacted with, all bounce and confidence, on first impressions Miss Dawes was quiet, almost solemn, but watchful with it. She was almost wary, and Sarah suddenly had a vivid mental image of a small kitten in a room with a large dog carefully examining the potential threat to see if it was safe to come forward. Inwardly Sarah sighed. That kind of silent wariness was not typical in young girls and from her extensive past experience in working with children and adolescents she knew it was often a marker of a less than ideal home life. Which wasn't that surprising but it would have been nice if that wasn't the case. But anyway, she was wool-gathering, so she smiled to put her small guest at ease.

"Before we go any further I just wanted to congratulate you on your remarkable results in the entrance exams. That was very impressive work, Miss Dawes."

Her interviewee blushed and looked down at the hands in her lap. "Thank you, Miss."

"Did you think that you would do so well?"

Molly looked up, surprised at the question. "Oh no, Miss! I actually didn't know if I would pass. But I wanted to try. Just to see if I could do it," she rushed to explain.

"And you could!"

For the first time Sarah saw the small edges of a smile curl that solemn mouth. "Yes, Miss. It was a shock to me too!"

Sarah chuckled, amused by the wide eyed honesty on Dawes' face.

"Why didn't you think you could do it, Molly? Didn't your parents tell you that you could?"

The flicker of a smile disappeared as her guest shook her head. "No, Miss. They didn't know. And if they had, they wouldn't have let me sit the exam." Her expression was cool again, mouth pressed in a firm line as she made her admission, which left Sarah more than slightly surprised.

 _"They don't know_ that you sat the exam?"

Dawes nodded decisively and shrugged. "My Dad wouldn't have let me. He says anyway that I've got ideas above my station and that someone as stupid as me might as well not be in school in the first place as there's no point."

It was a bone dry recitation of facts, stated with hardly any emotion as though this horrible statement was something that Miss Dawes was so used to she hardly considered it worth mentioning. But to Sarah it was horrible, emotionally abusive and so awfully undermining she couldn't imagine how a child that heard her father say that about her on a regular basis could maintain any form of healthy self-esteem.

"Does your Dad say that a lot to you, Miss Dawes?"

"It's what he's always said Miss. As long as I can remember."

Sarah sat back in her seat as she took that in. That was appalling. She frowned.

"I see. So how did you find out about the school and why did you decide to take the exam in the first place?" Because someone must have helped her, as even the most mature ten year seldom had the foresight to apply for a scholarship totally by herself.

Miss Dawes brightened. "That was Miss C, Miss," she explained eagerly. "Miss C. She's the librarian at Upton Park Library. She thought I should do it. And my Nan, as well."

The little animation in the girl's face died again, a shadow falling over those great green eyes replacing the sparkle that had been apparent only a few seconds earlier as her gaze shifted back to her interlocked fingers. Her Nan? Ah, yes, her grandmother. Charles had mentioned in his notes when he confirmed the date for the interview that Miss Dawes' grandmother had been killed only a few weeks ago, in a rather horrible traffic accident on the way home from accompanying Miss Dawes to sit her entrance exam here at City. And that Miss Dawes had been present at the scene of the accident. That must be a horrendous thing for such a young girl to witness and as Sarah looked at Dawes and that mask of composure she was suddenly extremely impressed by how well she was outwardly coping.

"I'm sorry about your grandmother, Molly." She offered gently. The little girl looked up and gave her a wan smile.

"Thank you, Miss."

"So she, and your…Miss C, they suggested that you try the entrance exam?"

Her interviewee nodded solemnly. "They thought I could do it, and that I should aim higher than the local comp." Her eyes widened. "Not that there is anything wrong with the local comp, Miss! I'm not a snob!" she reassured the older woman anxiously.

Sarah's lips twitched as she fought to hold back her amusement. A snob! That's the last thing she would think to call this small girl with her brains and the difficult circumstances she was dealing with.

"I'm sure you're not, Molly. Can I call you Molly?"

She received a tentative smile in response to that request. "Of course Miss."

"Well, I can't disagree with your Miss C, and your Nan sounded like she was a very wise woman."

That small smile widened, just a little. "She would have liked to hear you say that, Miss. She always liked it when girls got ahead. She always told me that I shouldn't listen to me Dad, that he didn't know anything about nothing, and that he was wrong when he told me I was stupid." The little girl sat up straight suddenly, chin jutting stubbornly into the air.

"Yes. Well, I only had to look at your exam results to know that he is very, very wrong. You are not stupid at all, Molly. In fact, you are a very clever young woman. So I would like you to remember that."

The little girl blushed again and looked down, clearly embarrassed at the praise so Sarah changed the subject.

"So why would you like to come to City?"

From then on the interview became a little more general in topic, as Sarah carefully drew her small applicant out from her shell. Once she relaxed again Molly Dawes was charming company, bright, alert and infinitely curious, with all of the bubbling enthusiasm of youth and a palatable urge to spread her wings beyond the intellectual trammelling of her rather over extended primary school. However, Sarah had a distinct impression that if it hadn't been for the benevolence of the mysterious Miss C, things would have already have been far worse for Miss Dawes at home and it concerned her, as City could be an academically demanding environment, even with full parental support and she wasn't sure if the little girl would be able to keep up without that bolstering.

"Molly, it's been lovely to talk to you. I just have two more questions."

Dawes looked up at her attentively; little face lively and animated as a result of the enjoyment she'd clearly been getting out of their discussion.

"City can be quite a demanding place to go to school. And from what you've said, your parents are unlikely to be actively supportive of your wish to go here, isn't that correct?"

Molly nodded reluctantly.

"So why do you think I should offer you a place here when I take those circumstances into account?"

The chin came up again and Miss Dawes looked her directly in the face, those green eyes burningly focused. "Because I'll work harder than anyone else, Miss. And because I've got Miss C, she's better than my Mum and Dad has ever been, she'll help." The chin tipped even higher. "And because nobody has ever given me a real chance to show what I can do, and I think if you give me a chance, you'll never regret it," she declared passionately.

It was almost a manifesto, declared with the maturity of someone far older than the little girl's actual years and the strength of her conviction took Sarah by surprise.

"And if I do give you a chance, Molly Dawes? What will you do with that chance?"

That stubborn chin firmed, the small jaw clenched. "I'm going to be a doctor. An accident and emergency doctor. I'm going to _help_ people." It was almost hissed, there was so much conviction in her voice and Sarah sat back, impressed and a little saddened by the necessity that had caused this small soul to grow up so terribly, terribly fast.

"Well, whatever happens as a result of today, I'm sure you'll achieve your aims, Molly Dawes," she reassured, sincerity clear in her voice. She stood to indicate the interview was over and the little girl stood up hastily as well and extended one small hand to shake which Sarah took with a smile.

"Thank you for seeing me, Miss."

Sarah smiled at her. "It was my genuine pleasure, Molly, it was very nice to meet you! Thank you for taking the time to come in and we'll hopefully get back to you with our decision within the next two weeks."

Miss Dawes smiled shyly at her as Sarah escorted her to the door of her office and then with a last exchange of pleasantries she was gone.

Sarah watched the small upright figure make her way down the corridor until she turned the corner out of sight and then returned to her desk with a smile. Molly Dawes. She made a note in her file, tapping her pen against her lips with a smile. An unexpectedly impressive young lady. Almost the archetype of a diamond from the rough. And maybe she was right; perhaps she just needed someone who was willing to take a chance on her to show what she could really do. And wasn't someone like Miss Dawes exactly why the full scholarship program existed at City in the first place? She made another note. It was still a little premature to make any form of decision as there were a handful of candidates still to be interviewed, but Miss Molly Dawes was looking to be a very strong contender for the 100% scholarship indeed.

 _Upton Park Community Library_

Molly was restless, unable to settle. It had been over a week and a half since her scholarship interview and she and Miss C had _still_ not heard anything from City and she was beginning to think that they never would. She tried to comfort herself by the reminder that she _had_ done well, whatever happened and that all of the work she and Miss C had put in had been generally useful, but it didn't help much. And combined with the lingering grief of Nan's death and how she still ached from missing that familiar acerbic presence it meant that she was miserable, although she tried to hide it from Miss C.

Cecilia paused in her administration to frown across the library to where Molly was tucked into her usual seat, a pile of books on the floor beside her as she worked on her homework. Molly was…moping was probably the best word for it. It was atypical behaviour from her student but it was understandable as the previous month had been both horrible and stressful for the little girl. Cecilia had tried her best, but despite her best efforts she wasn't actually family and she couldn't intrude in that sphere in the way that Molly's Nan had been happy to do. And despite how much she wanted to she couldn't just kidnap her mentee and take her home to wrap her up in blankets and feed her decent food and giant cups of hot chocolate until she gained a little bit of weight and lost the peaky look that had been hovering around her face for weeks. So she compromised by trying to tempt Molly with cups of hot chocolate at the library and the occasional bit of suitably calorific home baking which the little girl could always be persuaded to at least try. But apart from that, and providing as much emotional support to the ten year old as she could both of them simply had to wait it out. But Cecilia was determined that if they hadn't heard from City by this time next week she was going to give them a call and demand an accounting.

A few hours later a best loved face popped up at Cecilia's elbow, her little forehead creased in a sadly familiar frown of worry.

"Miss C?"

Cecilia didn't pause from her sorting but indicated with a raised eyebrow for Molly to continue.

"I was just thinkin'," she hesitated, face screwed up contemplatively. "If I do get in, how are we goin' to swing it? I mean, my old man would never let me go, and they'll ave' to agree, won't they?"

Cecilia bit back a smile. Molly's diction always slipped the more emotional she was and her Cockney accent always became more prevalent in times of stress. And while she was desperately proud of the huge strides her pupil had made over the last three and a bit years the increased Cockney edge to Molly's voice always reminded Cecilia of the tiny fairy waif that the older woman had first met. But she shouldn't get distracted, as Molly had asked a serious question and deserved a serious answer. She put down her paperwork and turned in her seat to face her student.

"You are absolutely right; Molly, and normally we would have to get your parents' permission to allow you to attend City. But in this case, your Nan was more far sighted than the both of us."

"Nan?" The little girl was clearly taken aback by that piece of news. "How? What did she do?"

"Well, when I put in your application for the exams the form had to be signed by one of your parents. I was rather concerned that it would be an issue, but your Nan announced that I wasn't to worry, and that she would take of it. But at the same time, she asked me for something else."

"What?"

Cecilia smiled a little sadly. Marge had been a lot sharper than anyone had ever formally given her credit for, and Cecilia had found she had been missing that clear eye and sharp tongue far more than she had expected.

"Well, when she made your Mum sign the application form, she also had her sign this." Cecilia reached into the private drawer of her desk and pulled out the folder containing Molly's application documents, from which she carefully extracted a piece of typed up white A4.

"What is it?" Molly craned to look, standing up on her tiptoes but then settled down as Cecilia gently handed it over.

"Read it yourself."

It read – _Certificate of Educational Guardianship – Miss Molly Dawes._ Below that was a thick mass of words, some of which she didn't recognise, but which she could tell were technical legal terms. But then at the bottom, under " _Appointed Educational Guardian_ " it read " _Ms Cecilia Jones_ ," with Miss C's home address below that, but even more amazing, at " _Signature of parent or_ _Guardian_ ", there was her Mum's familiar messy scrawl. And it was dated mid-December last year, just a few weeks before she, Molly, had sat her scholarship exams.

For a minute Molly just stared at the paperwork, bewildered as to what it meant. But then the significance sank it and she raised her eyes to give Miss C a wide look of pure amazement. "This means I can go if City lets me in, doesn't it?"

Cecilia nodded. "Yes. And if City doesn't this will allow us to apply to other places without us needing to get permission from your Mum and Dad."

"Oh." Molly's eyes widened even further. It was like _freedom_. But then she frowned again as a thought occurred to her. "But my Mum n' Dad, they can always cancel this, can't they?"

"Yes, they can, but it's been lodged with the local education authorities, so they would have to do it formally, and to be honest," Cecilia grimaced, not wanting to bad mouth Molly's parents in front of her, but needing to provide reassurance, "I can't see your Mum and Dad ever being willing to go to that level of effort."

Molly nodded her agreement. "But I won't tell them anything anyway. Best not to tempt fate, or my Dad might decide to be a sod about it anyway." It was such an adult comment, one leavened with a heavy dose of cynicism and Cecilia's heart ached that Molls had had to grow so very, very fast.

"That's probably a good idea," she confirmed. Molly gingerly handed the sheet of paper back to her as if was something infinitely precious, which to Molly, Cecilia reflected, it probably was. It represented opportunity, the chance to do something different, something more challenging with her life than the path her family expected her to take, so no wonder Molly valued it.

Molly looked at her and bit her bottom lip, that little frown still etched between her brows. "I suppose we just have to wait and see, Miss C?"

Cecilia smiled at the unintentional pun but nodded solemnly. "Indeed, Miss Dawes, we do." Then she reached out to ruffle Molly's hair. "Just wait and see and fingers crossed!"

 _City of London School for Girls_

Sarah Smythe tapped her pen against the document on the table in front of her as she considered and then looked up and smiled at her assembled team.

"Well, I think that's us agreed then? Unless anyone would like to make any further recommendations?"

She looked around the table, making eye contact with her Bursar, Charles, then with Janet Lawson, who was her deputy headmistress but also responsible for the administration of the admissions process, then at the various Heads of the years for the senior school. All of the assembled men and women nodded, or smiled, or made some other sign of agreement and with a broad smile of satisfaction Sarah looked down at the list on the desk again and then closed the folder enclosing it with a snap.

"Excellent! Thank you, ladies and gentlemen for a very productive session. I appreciate it that it over ran but I think that you'll all agree it was for a good cause!" She pushed up from the table and with that signal the rest of her staff stood up as well and started to disperse, as Sarah made her way to her office, leaving the folder on Rebecca's desk so her PA could start the process of making the final offers the next day.

It was late morning the next day before Sarah returned to the office as she'd been attending an inter schools discussion at Imperial College down in Kensington first thing. But as she made her way through the ante chamber in front of her office she saw the piles of A4 envelopes ready to go out, stacked up in alphabetical order and she couldn't help but notice the name emblazoned across the top one. She paused and tapped the envelope gently with one long finger remembering a delicate small face with a stubborn chin and that look of blazing determination in those green eyes as her smile widened. Well indeed.

 _Let's see what you can do, Molly Dawes._


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 _May 2003_

 _(Author's note: Apologies for the extensive delay - RL caught up with me with a vengeance. Molly is 15 here, nearly 16 (I've put her birthday in June as canon doesn't say exactly when it is.) And also, after consultation with wiser OG heads than mine, I've had to change my dates again! Mea culpa! Sorry…..reviews would be lovely!)_

Sometimes to Molly it seemed like she was always running. Running to school, running to the library, running from class to class, to St John's Ambulance on Saturdays, to swimming, to dancing, to all of the other extra-curricular activities that stuffed her calendar. However, thankfully she'd realised long ago that she liked running. A lot. So the insane busyness of her life, with all of its different demands that could only really be managed if she did run from appointment to appointment was a challenge rather than an obstacle. Although she did admit, even if only to herself, that sometimes she felt like she was one of those acrobats she'd seen in books on the circus and online, the ones that spun 15 plates on sticks all at once, desperately bouncing from place to place to try and prevent the plates from all crashing down to earth at once.

Up at 5.45 every morning to tiptoe downstairs to the kitchen where the chaos of her Mum's attempts at dinner the night before would be strewn across the counters. It was another part of the unspoken bargain with her Mum; Belinda would continue not to enlighten her husband about where their eldest daughter had been going to school for the last almost five years and in exchange Molly would pull her weight in housework, even if she was in the house these days as little as possible. So for 30 minutes every morning she would quietly move around the kitchen and clean up, and do the living room as well if she had a chance, laying the breakfast things out and for a short time bringing order out of chaos. Then at 6.30 she was out the door, lacing up her trainers to jog the 15 minutes to the library where she would let herself in using the key Miss C had given her when she officially became a junior part time member of staff, absent mindedly tapping in the security code to disarm the alarm system before she starting systematically re-shelving the piles of books left waiting for her on their trollies in the Staff Room.

Surprisingly, it hadn't been Miss C who suggested that the library offer Molly a part time job. Instead it had been Josephine, one of the assistant librarians, when being surrounded yet again by the Herculean task of re-shelving all of the books checked in and left lying around, plus having to deal with the rest of her job description had suggested that what the library really needed was someone to come in on a part time basis and just re-shelf the books. It had been a good suggestion and Cecilia had looked into it and realised that the budget could stretch, but only if they paid minimum wage and even then the job would probably only amount to a maximum of a few hours a week, but would require the individual concerned to come into the library every day, so reliability was essential. It was an awkward set of conditions, low pay, low hours, but frequent commitment and Cecilia expected that finding a suitable candidate was going to be extremely awkward as most adults wouldn't be interested in the trade off in flexibility that such a low paid position with such minimum hours would entail. But then Josephine again (who of course had known Molly for years by then) had pointed out that Molly was now 14 and so legally allowed to work part time and that she would be the perfect candidate, if she would be interested.

Cecilia had been a little taken aback, as she tended to think of Molly basically as family, rather than from an employment perspective. But when she'd given it some thought she realised that Josephine had been right, the job might suit Molly down to a tee. She'd been a little worried about the possibility of being accused of quasi-nepotism by the rest of the staff so she'd put it to them in a staff meeting and noted that if they had any objections she would place an external advert for the position. But the other five library staff had been warmly encouraging, noting that Molly had become such a fixture in the library over the last seven years that it would almost be unfair _not_ to offer her the gig. So Cecilia, only too aware that Molly's personal finances, even with the full scholarship she was on and the extra cash the school granted her for uniforms, books and her laptop were extremely tight, had discussed it with her mentee.

Originally Molly had been a little dubious, not about the job itself, which she knew she could do in her sleep as after practically haunting the library for over 7 years now she had the Dewey decimal system metaphorically tattooed on the inside of her eyelids. But it was more about finding the time when it wouldn't eat into the space she needed for studying, as in Molly's world view, everything else was subordinate to that.

But then Cecilia mentioned that it might be easier if Molly undertook the re-shelving either before or after the library was open and Molly realised that she just about fit in a hour a day if she did it ridiculously early. It took a certain amount of persuasion for Miss C to come around to her point of view as she was worried about the effect on Molly's sleep patterns, but it was the subdued admission from the 14 year old that she'd been getting up stupidly early anyway and hanging around at school for hours before lessons started to avoid her Dad pretty much since she'd started at City anyway that had swung it. So now 6.45 to 7.45 Monday to Friday and 2 hours on Saturday evening after closing Molly re-shelved the scattered piles of library books and was paid the princely sum of £3.50 an hour, which was technically the minimum wage for an 18-21 year old, but no one batted an eyelid at the slight oversight. It was only £24.50 a week, but it was tax free and more to the point it was money that no one in her family knew she had and so a precious piece of financial independence.

At Cecilia's heavily weighted suggestion Molly had opened her own account (with Cecilia as counter signatory) at the same bank where Cecilia administered the trust account with the small amount of money in it that Nan had left Molly in her will,. It wasn't much by the standards of any one used to real money, just over £1,000 but Molly had been amazed and grateful when Cecilia had finally explained to her about the details of Marge's will, how she, Cecilia was Nan's executor and what that meant and why she had decided to not tell Molly about it until the dust had settled from Nan's unexpected death and Molly had started at City. It also meant that there had been time enough for Dave Dawes to forget that he'd been raging about not being left anything before Cecilia had informed Molly of her inheritance.

But that money, plus the almost £100 Molly was now earning every month was her safety net against everything going, as her fellow Cockneys would put it, completely Pete Tong. So from 6.45 to 7.45 every morning Molly happily re-shelved books with a song in her heart before she finished, grabbed her school issued laptop which she kept in the library staff room and literally ran off to school.

It had been a bit of a revelation to her, how much she actually liked running. When she'd started at City Miss C had urged to take advantage of all of the extracurricular activities she could and being a little bit OCD by nature Molly had sat down with Miss C and looked at the options available and what things it would be really useful to learn and systematically got involved. Even the running had been as a result of a gentle suggestion from Miss C that she had to look after herself physically as well as academically if she was going to be able to keep up with the pace at her academically demanding school. So she had taken up running, on the grounds that it was cheap and didn't require any more equipment than the PE kit her scholarship funds covered and also because she could do it on her own outside school if necessary. She also discovered that she really liked to dance – nothing formal like ballet, which a lot of the girls at City seemed to have been doing since birth, but instead the commercial, chart based routines that the PE teachers often choreographed as PE lessons. And finally swimming, because she'd never learned and she realised it would be useful. Having to go to her form's PE teacher in her first year and confess that she couldn't swim and that she would like to learn had been embarrassing, but she hadn't been met with the scorn that she expected. Instead Ms Thompson had simply matter of a factly arranged a schedule of lessons with her at the school swimming pool before class started for the day and provided Molly with a plain school issue swimming costume. In a matter of months of regular lessons she was comfortably at home in the water and over the last few years she had even picked up some basic distance qualification badges and was considering whether to try for a lifeguard qualification when she got older.

She tried really hard to keep on top of her extracurricular activities without letting her academic work suffer. The academics were her priority of course, but Miss C kept urging her that she had to remember that being a competent adult and a doctor was not just about gaining qualifications but it was also about "life skills", the ability to be able to interact with people from different backgrounds, to be the kind of person people wanted to work with and that came in part from being a well-rounded person. Molly hadn't been convinced at first because surely as long as you were bright and worked hard those things didn't really matter? But then the older woman had pointed out how much of being a doctor was being able to help people with their problems, to deal with them effectively when they were in distress or in pain and how a chunk of that wasn't just about medicine but also about how you cared for the _patient_ , not just the injury. That had got her thinking and the articles that Miss C provided her with, on the necessity of balancing compassion and objectively in medical practice had made her realise that there was a lot more to being a doctor than just bandaging up an injury.

That realisation had also been why she'd joined the St John's Ambulance Cadets almost as soon as she started at City. It had been the first concrete and skill specific thing she had tackled towards her goal of being a doctor and she had embraced it with enthusiasm, gulping down all of the first aid training they could offer her eagerly and then when turned 14 she'd joined the Youth First Aider program and had become a Cadet First Aider, which meant that she spent frequent Saturdays volunteering at football and rugby matches and festivals all around London and the South East. She didn't get paid for any of it but she grew to really enjoy the feeling of working effectively as part of a team, and the van journeys to and from the various gigs with all of the regular crew in the back, usually scoffing down Mickey D's or pizza that the leaders would buy for the cadets. And she got to see things that she would never have seen back in Upton Park, the roar of the crowd at Twickenham when England's rugby team marched out of the tunnel, the madness of the huge summer gigs at Hyde Park and the organised chaos of the Notting Hill Carnival. And all of that also kept her away from the house on Saturdays, which was a good idea because her Dad only seemed to be getting worse rather than better over the years, his temper ever more erratic and his determination that his eldest daughter was clearly a waste of space had only hardened over time. So she avoided him as much as possible, and slipped through the maisonette like a ghost, there as little as possible and when she was (usually only just to wash and sleep and occasionally eat at weekends) she was silent and did her very level best to blend in to the walls and not to gain his attention.

It was made easier by the fact that quite a few teachers at the school seemed to understand that her home life wasn't exactly ideal. She'd never said anything, but with every other pupil she'd been assigned a permanent locker for her stuff and she'd been given one of the few larger ones with room enough to store all of her uniforms so that's where she kept them. And the PE department had given her permission to use their washing machine and tumble dryer so she washed her stuff at school which cut down on the risk of her Dad being clued in to where she'd been going to school for the last few years by seeing the distinctive City uniform as there was no uniform requirements at the local comp.

City also provided breakfast and lunch and she'd taken to snaffling a few extra pieces of fruit or a sandwich to take to the library and Miss C with her after class and her extra activities every day. Or Miss C often brought in a ready meal for two and they'd eat that while Molly worked on her homework or her revision before she slipped off home when the library closed, usually going straight from the doorway to her bedroom as quietly as possible if her Dad was about. If it was just her Mum she might risk going into the living room to catch up with her and her sibs, but even though the two of them never mentioned it, a gulf had opened up between mother and daughter, formed by Molly's increased aspirations and her quiet despairing realisation that her Mum would never find the strength to take the little blighters and leave her Dad, the way Molly knew she should. But instead her Mum stayed and took the abuse and the blows, the drunken shouting and swearing. Molly could have almost respected that if it had been for the right reasons, to protect the rest of her siblings, but it was the constant excuses for her Dad's behaviour that her Mum made that stuck in her craw, the apologies for him, the "he's just not himself today". Well if he wasn't himself he hadn't been himself for as long as she could remember and she'd finally run out of patience with her Mum's justifications when she was 13 and her Dad punched her in the stomach so hard she threw up. Thankfully it was summer so she didn't miss any school, but once she managed to stagger to the library Cecilia had insisted on taking her to hospital to get checked out and when the scan only revealed extensive bruising had taken Molly back to her, Cecilia's, house and insisted that Molly stay with her for a day or two until the worst of the damage had healed up.

Cecilia had been furious and had tried her best at the time to persuade Molly to allow her to go to the police and report her Dad. But Molly had begged her not too. "What happens then, Miss C? My Mum will never back me up, so then the Social, they'll just remove me from the house and then I'll end up in foster care and there's no way they would let my life go on as it does now. And just now I can handle everything, honestly! I promise! I was just stupid, I got in his way, I know better, but I forgot that he was going to be about and then I gave him cheek."

Miss C had exploded, her cheeks flushed with her fury. "That's no excuse for hitting you, Molly! I've got to report this!"

Molly grabbed her mentor's arm. "No, no, please don't! If you do that I could lose everything and I couldn't handle that. I just have to get to 16 and then the Social can't touch me and then I'll leave if it all gets too bad, I promise! But just now I have to stick it out, just for a bit longer." Cecilia shook her head, horrified. "And I have to make sure that he doesn't start on the little bleeders as well, if I'm not there who knows what he might do to my Mum and the little ones?"

That argument cut through Cecilia's fury like nothing else could, deflating her. She took a few deep breaths, aware of Molly watching her anxiously, nerves pouring off her in waves. "All right. I won't report him." She raised a finger. "This time. But if he ever lays another finger on you I can't promise anything," she warned.

Molly nodded eagerly. "No, I get it. He won't get a chance to, I promise."

And he hadn't as Molly had avoided him adroitly in the three years since. But it had meant that she avoided her Mum as well and that gulf between them had widened, slowly but surely. Sometimes Molly wistfully wished that things were different, but her Nan had taught her young that there was no point in crying over things that might have been and she'd pushed the regret aside and continued on. And now here she was, about to turn 16, with 3 early GCSE's already under her belt (all A *'s!). Not that her parents knew anything about it, as she knew better than to confide in her Mum about anything she didn't want getting back to her Dad. Her Mum might have signed the Educational Guardianship document at her Nan's instigation, and she might have kept stum all of these years about where Molly went to school from her Dad, but that was the extent of her willpower. Everything else had long since been subsumed to her Dad, like everything else in their family, all rotating around the dysfunctional sun that was Dave Dawes.

But not Molly. No, not her. She was the one part of the Dawes mob that wasn't in thrall to her Dad and she intended to keep it that way. In fact as soon as she could she was going to be as far away from him as possible. But just now she had to keep quiet. While turning 16 would remove the threat of the Social putting her in foster care and disturbing her schooling it didn't remove the fact that she still had to have a roof over her head somehow, and home, while not exactly a welcoming environment was at least that, shelter. So she'd keep her mouth shut and her head down and hopefully her sixteenth birthday would pass as all the others had so far, with a distracted hug from her Mum being the extent of the familial acknowledgement while her real birthday salutations would be given by her surrogate family at the library, where there would be cake, and some small presents from her colleagues and a slightly more significant present from Miss C.

Just a few days and she'd be just that little bit closer to being in control of her own destiny. It was a comforting thought and one she hugged close. She couldn't recall the last time her Dad had remembered her birthday so she didn't expect him to acknowledge it in any way. Which is why, despite all of her habitual wariness, she was so caught off guard when everything comprehensively went to shit.

The first thing she knew about it was when she slipped through the door into the maisonette like always. It was the day before her birthday and Miss C had already indicated that the next night she and Molly were going to do something a bit special. Molly didn't know what it was, but she would sure she'd enjoy it because Miss C had a talent for finding random cheap outings for the two of them, like the time she dragged Molly out on a Saturday to attend the Open House weekend and they had spent the day in awe at the amazing interiors hidden behind the forbidding facades of various London landmarks. But as it was her sixteenth Molly was hoping that it would be something cool and she was looking forward to their trip more than anything else about tomorrow.

She had just put a foot on the stairs to climb up to her room, wincing as she did so at the creak of the step when her Dad's voice unexpectedly echoed out of the living room.

"Girl? Is that you? Get in 'ere now. I wanna talk to you."

She hesitated and wondered for a moment if she could just pretend she hadn't heard and go up to bed now, but that plan was shot a second later. "Molls. Get the fuck in 'ere, _now_ –you 'ear me?"

There was an edge to his voice now and she knew if she didn't obey he would come out and take it out on her, or if he couldn't get to her he'd take it out on her Mum or the little ones. So reluctantly she took her foot off the steps and shifted to stand in the entrance to the living room, where he was sprawled in his habitual heap on their well broken in couch, open can of lager in one hand and the remnants of a six pack crumpled and lying on the carpet at his feet. In the corner of the room she could see her Mum, keeping her head down as always and she thought that Bella might be in the kitchen, but the rest of the little blighters were in bed thank fuck.

"Yes, Da, I'm 'ere." As always her Cockney accent broadened around her father, an instinctive act of self-protection against his habitual accusations that she was "'getting above 'erself."

Her father waved the larger can blearily in her direction. "Get in 'ere, girl, where I can see you properly."

Molly cautiously did as requested, trying to work out exactly how drunk he was before she moved too close to him. He glared at her from red rimmed eyes and she bit back on the urge to curl her lip in disgust at the wreck of him, her expression staying determinedly neutral. But perhaps something of what she was thinking may have shown in her eyes as he paused in his inebriated scan of her body and glared back at her, something hard and ugly glinting in his eyes. Inwardly Molly tensed. Nothing good ever came from that look. Briefly she risked a look at her Mum, who was huddled on the spare armchair, the uncomfortable one with the broken springs that no one but her ever used, but Molly had always suspected that her Mum liked it because it was the furthest chair in the room from her Dad. But her Mum carefully didn't meet her daughter's gaze, looking down at the floor in a way that telegraphed exactly how foul her Dad's temper currently was far more accurately than any barometer and Molly shifted from foot to foot, suddenly nervous.

Her Dad finished his perusal of her body and looked up at her, bloodshot eyes narrowed. "So girl, you must be nearly 16 by now, right?"

He obviously expected an answer and so she nodded slowly.

He smiled in response, a drunken edged kind of smile, satisfaction etching its way across his face and her stomach dropped in nervous anticipation. He never looked like that unless something was going the way he wanted and that never boded well for her.

"Good," his smile widened. "So that'll be you finishing school this year then. You can get a job, bring in some money for the house and help your Mum with the little 'uns, earn your keep for once in yer life."

For a second Molly didn't really hear what he was saying, the casualness of his pronouncement underplaying the importance of his statement, but then it sank in. With one drunken comment he was cutting the legs out from under her future, undermining every plan she had, relegating her to the dustbin of her career hopes before she'd even got the results in from her GCSEs! Her face flushed and her stomach churned and she had to swallow against the sudden burst of nausea as her entire body reacted to the wrecking ball of his casual statement and she rejected it with every iota of her being. No, no, no, this was not happening. He couldn't be doing this.

"But Da," she instinctively protested, "I need to finish school - I can't just leave with only my GCSE's! I have to get my A-levels!"

Her Dad glared at her, his look of fatuous satisfaction quickly morphing into something harder and more ugly. "You'll do what yer told, girl." He snorted. "Anyway, who do you think you are, anyway? Yer just a scrub from the East End, a pikey girl. You're probably too stupid to even pass A-levels, so what's the point? And you'll never get a job that needs poncy A-levels anyway - and yer don't need them to get a job in the supermarket or the pub or the nail bar and help yer Mum and me out with your wages."

Molly could feel the gorge rising in her throat, almost choking her. This couldn't be happening, it really couldn't. But she had to try.

"But Da, I could do it, my A-levels I mean. I could! And then," she added with a burst of inspiration, "I could get a job in an office, as a secretary maybe, and then I would be able to bring in a lot more money." Of course in reality, if everything went well she would be far away from this flat at that point, but maybe it would work, maybe the possibility of more money in the future would be enough to sway him. And for a second she thought it had, his eyes narrowing as he thought. But then his face settled back into its habitual bitter/sour mask and he snarled back at her.

"You," he looked her up and down and sneered, "get a job in an office? I don't think so. That's for girls who can think, not East End scrubs like you, my girl. No. You'll leave school now, and get a job and that's the end of it."

For a second Molly just stood there, her entire future crashing down in front of her. She wanted to scream, she wanted to cry, she wanted to throw things, but she knew from bitter past experience that there was no point and she sagged in momentary defeat, which Dave Dawes noted with puffed up satisfaction. There, he'd put his stuck up scrub of a daughter in her place, proper like. Now she would get a job and help out in the house like a girl should, none of this book learning that she didn't need, making her think she was better than him - Dave Dawes! No woman was better than he was and certainly not his jumped up sprig of a girl child.

But then that voice inside Molly, that one that had steamrolled all of the obstacles in her way, pushed through every objection, that voice that sounded suspiciously like her still beloved Nan, spoke up and before she knew what she was doing her voice rang out, loud in the silence after her Dad's announcement.

"No."

Dave looked up, bleary eyes half focused and narrowed. "What did you say?"

Molly straightened her shoulders. It was done now, so she might as well own it. "I said no, Da." Her lips pressed together in a firm line, chin raised. "I'm not leaving school. I'm staying and I'm going to do my A-levels and get a good job. It's the right thing to do."

Dave Dawes face reddened at this show of outright defiance. How dare this slip of a girl defy him, in his own house? His face contorted in rage, mouth snarling. "You'll do as yer bloody well told, girl, and like it." He barked out a harsh laugh. "And you? Get a job? No man's going to be stupid enough to give a job to a thicko like you girl. You should learn yer place." He stumbled drunkenly to his feet, rage and frustration at everything in his life that defied him bubbling up, coalescing around the small upright figure that was regarding him with wary green eyes. "And if you don't know it yet, I'll make sure yer learn it, don't doubt that I will."

Molly took a wary step back away from him, aware of her mother cowering silently in the chair in the corner of the room not interfering. She knew that she'd get no help from that quarter, she never had. Dave loomed ever closer, bloodshot eyes filled with an inchoate rage, a petty tyrant who had never amounted to anything in the world, but who nonetheless felt like the world had owed him something, owed him and hadn't paid its debts so he took out his frustrations with the wasteland his life had been with booze and smokes and occasionally harder stuff if he could get hold of it. And at least in this small flat he was the King he felt he should have been, here at least his word was law and his whims would be obeyed, and reinforced by the hard lash of a fist he would never have dared to raise against a man his own size but had no qualms using against his own wife and children. After all, wasn't that what being a man was all about? Disciplining your family, being in charge in your own home? And they all fell into line, especially since that interfering old bitch was dead, that Marge, who dared to try and get between him and his god given right to rule his house as he pleased. All of them apart from his oldest, that stupid little bitch who hadn't seemed to have understood the lesson that her mother and her brothers and sisters had long internalised, that his word was the law, and the law would be obeyed. This girl who drifted like a ghost in his house, hardly ever there and when she was looked at him with a glint in her eye, like she thought that she was cleverer than him, him, Dave Dawes! And she grew older the more and more she reminded him of Marge, the way the both of them silently judged him, as though they were better than him. And it made him furious, furious in a way he couldn't even explain.

But when he told her his decree he knew that he'd won the unspoken battle between them, seen the dullness in her eyes as the realisation set in and he'd loved it, loved knowing that the little bitch had finally realised who was in charge. But then she'd dared, dared to answer him back, dared to defy him and that was the final straw as far as he was concerned. She owed him _respect,_ and he was going to make sure she showed it.

He stumbled closer, until only about half a metre divided them, leaning down to snarl into her face. "You'll do what I tell you, girl. Or you'll learn the consequences."

For a second, staring into those bloodshot eyes, her father so close that she could smell him, booze and fags and unwashed man, she nearly gave in, nearly let herself fall into the patterns of obedience that he'd been attempting to beat into her almost since she was born. But then that part of her that had said no before stiffened her spine and made her stare back at him, secretly terrified but possessed of a total blazing certainty that, no matter what the consequences were, she wasn't backing down.

"No. It's not right. And…" she hesitated aware that she was fast approaching her own personal Rubicon but determined to press on anyway. "…you can't make me."

She never even saw the blow coming, it came so fast. One minute she was standing facing her father, looking up into his contorted expression and the next thing she knew she was sprawled on the floor at his feet. For a beat it didn't even hurt, as though her body refused to accept the immediacy of what had just been done to her, surprise overriding her nerve endings, even though some part of her had been braced for something like this to occur. She knew her father, after all. And then the pain came, in red hot wire waves across her face, as her cheek and jaw responded to the impact of his fist and her neck finally registered the ricochet that had knocked her off her feet.

She felt something trickle from the sting at the corner of her lip and licked it up absently, tasting the copper iron tang of her blood even as she maintained eye contact with her father, who was looming over her, one fist still clenched from where he'd punched her in the face. Some part of her registered with bitter past experience that she was lucky that he was so drunk as otherwise she might not still be conscious. But drunk he was and so when he'd punched her he'd only managed a clumsy swing, which is why she wasn't worse hurt. But her face was starting to throb in a familiar way and she knew that she was going to have a hell of a bruise. But as she lay there, looking up at the contorted, smug, satisfied face of the one man she should never have cause to be afraid of, her own father, she knew she was done. Done with him. Done with this. Decision made, she crab crawled backwards a few steps, and leveraged herself to her feet shakily, warily maintaining eye contact with him at all times, but aware of her mother still quietly cowering in the corner of the room. No help there for her. No help ever, against her father in anything and for a second she felt a beat of pure contempt for the woman who had allowed herself to become so enthralled to a man that she would allow him to punch their teenage daughter and not even raise a complaint. But it wasn't worth it, really, the energy that contempt required and she let her focus snap back to her father, even as she stood upright.

"Right girl. 'ave you learned your lesson?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, at least the one that wasn't rapidly swelling shut and stepped away, standing as tall as she could in the centre of the room, her articulation deliberately crisp.

"Yes, I have." He looked momentarily satisfied but that smugness quickly morphed back to baffled rage as she continued. "I have. I'll be staying at school until I'm 18 and nothing you can say or do will change that."

He stepped towards her with his fist raised again, but this time she was warned and she _moved_ , fast and hard and before he knew what was happening a small determined foot had kicked him with the full force she could manage, right in the groin. Dave Dawes' drunken world dissolved into a morass of pain and he found himself sinking to his knees, his collapse bringing his face just in perfect range for his daughter's second kick, the one that hit his diaphragm with the all of the force of the rage she had been holding back since she was old enough to remember and which knocked him backwards so he landed breathless on the carpet as she danced back from him.

He retched on the carpet, and in the background Molly could hear her mother make a moan of shock but she ignored her, all of her focus on her father's face.

"Yer dead, girl, you 'ere me?" he gasped out as he coughed. "As soon as I get up, yer dead!"

Molly felt a frisson of fear spike down her back but she ignored it, her attention on the pathetic heap of humanity sprawled in front of her as she shook her head.

"No, I'm not. Because if you lay another finger on me, I'm going straight to the police, and I won't stop until they lock you up like the scum you are. And if you think you can hurt me enough that I won't go, well, there are people who know where I am, and if I'm not available tomorrow morning they'll come looking, and _they'll_ bring the police too."

It was only a partial lie, Cecelia would come looking for her if they didn't meet up tomorrow and her friend certainly would bring the police if Molly went missing, but part of it was bravado, although by the sudden pallor of her father's complexion and the subsequent look of frustrated rage he believed her.

"You'd bring the pigs down on yer old man?" His tone was almost incredulous, as though he couldn't believe it, that she would stand up to him, snap back at him that way. She just stared at him, stonily. She would too, and she wanted him to know it.

"Yes. I would," she lifted her chin defiantly.

He snarled, a horrible rasping noise. "Then yer not part of this family, girl. If you would do that, bring the Old Bill down on yer blood, you ain't one of us. And if yer ain't one of us - you don't get to stay in my house. You ain't welcome 'ere, anymore. Get out. Before I throw you out. And don't ever come back. You ain't my daughter no more."

He started to pull himself to his feet, holding on to furniture for support and in the background he could hear his wife crying. Stupid bitch. As if he didn't do enough for 'er.

"You!" He barked, not even bothering to turn around. "Stop yer whining. This girl 'ere, she ain't yer daughter no more, yer understand?"

Molly risked taking her gaze off her father's face to look at her Mum, just for a moment.

"Mum?" she pleaded. "Come with me? We can take the little blighters and go. It'll be okay."

Dave Dawes face contorted even further, if that was possible and he shifted towards his wife. "Don't you listen to 'er. You're stayin' 'ere Bells."

For a long second the two females in the room locked gazes, green eyes staring into almost identical older green eyes, Molly silently, desperately begging for her Mum to find her courage, fight for her daughter the way her eldest child instinctively knew she should. And for just a second there was a glimmer in her mother's eyes, the tiniest glimpse of remembered courage. And then her husband cleared his throat to spit on the living room floor and the hoarse noise caused her mother to shrink back on herself, like a hermit crab retreating back into her shell and she silently gave her eldest child the smallest shake of her head.

Molly felt it like she'd been punched again, right in the gut. She hadn't really expected anything else, but still, just for a second she'd hoped. Despite her best intentions tears glimmered at the edges of her eyes at the impact and Dave Dawes grunted in satisfaction at her pain, taking strength from it.

"See? You ain't welcome 'ere no more. You ain't one of us. Just some stuck up bitch who thinks she's better than us, and me and the missus - we don't want you 'ere. So get out of our house, bitch."

Molly took a deep breath and before either adult could move marched out of the room and made her way up the stairs, ignoring the shouting invectives from her father, which by now had woken up all the rest of the little blighters. She stalked into the room she shared with Bells, her 13 year old sister, who had woken up at the noise and was cowering in a corner of her upper bunk bed, hidden under the blankets and only lifted the covers enough to see her big sister come in, her green eyes, so similar to Molly's own widening at the red mark of her father's fist that was starting to blossom across Molly's pale skin.

"Molls? What's going on?" she whispered, even as her heart started to beat faster in dread as her older sister just gave her a small strained smile, pulled the old suitcase they kept under the bed out and without any pause started throwing all of her meagre collection of clothes, toiletries and miscellaneous books and knickknacks into the case with abandon. Then she pulled down the few family photos that she had stuck to the wall next to her bed and placed then on the top of the pile of stuff before she shut the case with a decisive snap. The whole operation couldn't have taken more than 5 minutes and to Bells, watching it looked as if her big sister had practiced it before. She sat up in panic. "Molls?"

The strain in her little sister's voice was evident and it was enough to stop Molly in her tracks as she made her way to the door, case wheeled behind her. She doubled back, all the time terribly conscious of the ticking countdown that was her father who would rapidly either be getting drunker or sobering up. Either option didn't bode well for her as his fear of the police's reprisals might be overridden by his desire to hurt her the drunker or more sober he got. She had to get out of this house and _now_.

But she could spare the time for this.

She reached up her arms to her little sister and helped her swing down off the bed, and pulled her into a tight hug, arms wrapped almost suffocating close around her, a hug that Bells reciprocated just as frantically, before she pulled back, cupping her little sister's face in her hands and dropping a kiss on her forehead.

"I've got to go Bells."

"But you'll be back, right?" Bells begged, desperate for reassurance, her heart starting to break as Molly shook her head firmly.

"I don't think so, love. Dad's chucked me out of the house."

"But why?"

Molly frowned at the confused plea. "He wants me to leave school. Get a job now to get him more money for drink really. And I'm not doing it. I'm staying it, the way Nan wanted me to."

"So you can be a doctor," Bells confirmed slowly. Molly nodded. Bells was the only person in her family that she'd ever told about her ambition and her younger sister understood that Molly just couldn't leave school, not if she ever wanted to fulfil that long held ambition and Moly could see the consequences of that realisation pass over the younger girl's face.

"But can't you work it out? Can't you persuade Dad to let you stay in school?"

Molly grimaced. "I tried Bells, I really did. Then he did this," she gestured to her face. "So I'm not trying anymore."

"But where will you go? How will I see you?"

Molly hugged her again. "I'll be fine, don't you worry. And if you want to see me, you're going to have to be careful, careful that Mum and Dad don't find out."

"But how will I find you?"

"Just go to the library," Molly murmured in her sister's ear. "And ask for Cecilia, the head librarian. She'll always know how to get in touch with me." She pulled back, holding her little sister by the shoulders. "And remember, it don't matter what Mum and Dad say, _I love you_. You and all the rest of the little blighters. And it don't matter what they say, _I'm still your sister_. I'll always be your sister. And I'll always love you all. I just can't stay. So make sure that you stay in touch, because it would break my heart if I lost you too. You promise? You promise to stay in touch?"

Bells pulled her into a final desperate hug, tears already starting to flow. She'd known too that this day would come eventually for a long time. Her big sister, her quiet hero, was the only person in the house since her Nan died that wasn't scared of her Dad the way the rest of them were and she'd realised long ago that eventually that lack of fear was going to tip her Dad over the edge. Because her Dad needed to be alpha dog in his house and to him, if his family weren't afraid of him, that meant that they didn't respect him, and that he couldn't handle. And her big sister, she'd never really been afraid of her Dad, despite all of the times he'd taken his temper out on her body with his fists, and Bells had known that eventually there would be a showdown and Molls would have to leave. But she had hoped it would be just a few more years so that she, Bells, could leave with her. But it seemed like that dream had finally ended tonight.

Molly pulled back from the hug, brushing the tears from both of their eyes with a careful hand and giving her sister a slightly watery smile. "I've got to go now Bells, before he gets worse."

Bells nodded. "I know. But just wait a sec." She darted over to her bed and pulled out a tiny wrapped package from under her pillow and thrust it at her big sister. "Here. For your birthday."

Molly just looked at it for a second and then back up at Bells and felt her heart break for the second time that night. She was almost glad to be finally leaving this flat and all of the pain and tension, but her Mum's rejection, that had hurt like a stab to the gut, and the idea that she was leaving Bells and the little blighters as well, well that truly would break her heart. But she couldn't afford to dwell now. She had to get out of here and fast. She tucked the little package carefully into her pocket and then pulled her sister into one last desperate hug, both of them clinging on to each other as though they were the driftwood keeping the other from drowning. Then Molly pulled back. "I love you. I love you so much Bells."

"I know." Her little sister gave her a watery, tremulous smile. "I do. I love you too." She gave her big sister a gentle push to the door. "Now go, before he comes up here." Molly nodded in tearful agreement and let go of her sister with one final squeeze, before she grabbed up the case again and made her way to the bedroom door.

Just before she left she turned round. "You stay up here, Bells, no matter what you hear, alright?" She waited until her sister nodded her assent and gave her a smile. "Just get back in bed, tuck yourself up. It'll be okay, I promise." Bells nodded again and did as instructed and then Molly gave her one final smile and switched off the light, leaving the room in darkness. "I love you, Bells. Always remember that."

"I do, and I love you too, our Molls. I promise I always will."

She could hear her big sister swallow in the darkness. "Me too. Now, go to sleep lovely. I'll see you soon. Somehow, I will. I promise." And with that final reassurance she left and closed the door firmly behind her, trying not to let her heart break just yet. Soon, but not yet. But behind the closed door Bells had no such reticence and she quietly tucked herself into the corner of her bunk bed, in their room, no she supposed, her room now, and silently cried and cried until her throat was raw and her eyes were swollen as she realised that Molly had lied to her after all. It wasn't gonna "be alright". It might never be alright again.

Outside, Molly leaned against the bedroom door just for a second before she pulled away, feeling like she was leaving half her heart behind, the pain making the throbbing in her face a secondary consideration for the moment. But then urgency and self preservation pushed her on. She had to get out of this house asap.

She made her way down the stairs with her case, not trying to hide what she was doing. He was waiting for her, skulking in the hallway, her mum just behind him hovering in the living room doorway, a red mark on her face that almost matched the one on her daughter's and some part of Molly's shattered heart rallied at the sight that her mum had at least made some token protest at her eldest daughter's summary ejection from the family home. Not that it had clearly done any good as her Da was waiting, the door open for her to leave, that mean smirk on his face like he thought he had finally won.

His gaze lit on her suitcase and his eyes narrowed. "What's that? You ain't taking anything that doesn't belong to you, girl."

Molly straightened her shoulders and drew herself up to her full diminutive height. Fuck him. She was keeping her stuff.

"It's my stuff. It's useless to anyone else." He made as if to move towards her to grab it and she raised her mobile phone (which she had borrowed from Cecila at her insistence "just in case"), to where he could see the illuminated screen, the 999 she had already dialled just waiting for her to press down with her thumb on the button. "Don't. I'll do it, Da. Don't think I won't. And I'll push it as far as I can."

He looked at her, testing her resolve, but there was something about the contemptuous look she was giving him, mixed with the steely reserve in her eyes that made him hesitate and then his wife's hand gently landed on his elbow. "Please don't, Dave. Just let her go," she whispered and after a moment, with a final curl of his lip he stepped back.

"Go on then. Get out. And don't you ever fuckin' come grovelling back if you know what's good for you. You're not my daughter any more." He caught the brief beseeching look Molly gave to her mother and shoved his wife back. "And she's not your mother, neither." He turned to glare at his wife. "You 'ear me Bell - you ain't to speak to her, or to see her, never. This girl, she's dead to you, get me?"

He waited until his wife gave a hesitant nod and cowered away from him before he turned back to his eldest child who had pulled her case out the door and was hovering on the threshold. "Go on then. Get."

Molly could feel her heart cracking all over again, and she craned her head around the belligerent bulk of her father to look at her Mum, who met her tear edged gaze for just a second before she turned away. "Mum?"

But there was no response and with a final terse move of his head her father ejected her out of the door and out of his family.

And Molly genuinely wasn't sure what was louder, the sound of the door slamming behind her, or the inward shriek of her broken heart.


End file.
